CHAUTAUQUA  LIBRARY..... GARNET  SERIES. 


ART 

AND 

THE  FORMATION  OF  TASTE. 

Six  ^Lectures 

BY    LUCY    CRANE. 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS    DRAWN   BY   THOMAS    AND 
WALTER  CRANE, 

AND 

AN  INTRODUCTION  BY  CHARLES  G.  WHITING, 

SPRINGFIELD  (MASS.)  REPUBUCAK. 


BOSTON: 
CHAUTAUQUA    PRESS, 

117   FRANKLIN   STREET. 
1887. 


COPYRIGHT,  1885, 
BY  RAND,  AVERY,  &  CO. 


PREFACE. 


THERE  is  a  certain  vogue  of  Art  in  these  days,  that 
in  some  respects  is  different  from  any  that  has  been 
known  in  other  ages  of  the  world.  In  Greece  the 
love  of  beauty,  and  the  skill  in  dealing  with  beauty  in 
the  forms  of  all  the  arts,  was  so  general  that  we  may 
accept  it  as  scarcely  an  exaggeration,  that  the  fishers 
who  dried  their  nets  on  the  shores  at  the  Piraeus  were 
as  good  critics  of  a  statue  or  a  poem  as  our  best- 
educated  people  are  now ;  and  in  fact,  in  aesthetics  they 
were  most  thoroughly  educated.  In  the  great  renas- 
cence of  Italy  and  France,  the  spring  of  it  was  wealth  ; 
and  its  influences  and  benefits  were  for  moneyed  men, 
for  princes  and  bishops  and  the  rest.  Art  is  again 
coming  to  be  general  and  popular,  —  coming  so  by 
means  of  a  diffusion  of  knowledge  which  makes  the 
beautiful  an  object  of  desire  as  a  fashion  ;  so  that  art 
is  not  yet  at  its  stature  of  greatness  with  us,  but  is 
dwarfed  to  the  level  of  the  popular  capacity,  and 

must  wait  until  we   the   people,  who  are  taking  the 

iii 

2066110 


iv  PREFACE, 

world  into  our  hands,  shall  have  grown  to  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  what  the  beautiful  is,  and  why  it  is, 
and  with  what  purposes  it  should  be  sought,  and  how 
its  true  place  in  our  lives  and  in  the  order  of  the 
universe  shall  be  discovered  and  attained. 

There  is  no  lack  of  talk  about  Art;  but  there  is 
little  that  is  said,  after  all,  that  is  based  on  the  princi- 
ples that  underlie  art  as  well  as  every  thing  that  pertains 
to  our  life,  and  there  is  too  much  about  the  narrow, 
technical,  and  temporary  details  and  fashions.  These 
unpretentious  lectures  of  Lucy  Crane  offer  the  truest 
and  healthiest  introduction  to  Art  on  the  indispensable 
basis  of  principle.  The  lovely  nature,  both  sweet  and 
strong,  of  their  author,  informs  her  gracious  and  intel- 
ligent instruction  with  a  fine  charm  ;  and  she  leads  her 
disciple,  by  a  hand  as  firm  as  it  is  gentle,  to  the  safe  and 
true  ground  of  taste  and  judgment.  After  the  reader 
has  reached  that  ground,  the  most  eloquent  treatises 
on  china-painting,  water-colors  in  twelve  lessons,  or, 
in  short,  all  technical  matters,  may  safely  be  taken  up  ; 
for  these  lectures  will  prove  a  protection  against  doing 
these  things  badly,  as  they  are  done  and  must  be  done 
by  those  who  undertake  them  without  culture  of  their 
higher  perceptions. 

Lucy  Crane  taught  in  sympathy  with  the  best  teach- 
ing of  Ruskin,  and  more  consistently  than  he.  When 
the  student  has  become  acquainted  with  the  best  ex- 
amples of  art,  and  with  the  essentials  of  its  presence, 


PREFACE.  V 

he  will  do  well  to  read  as  much  of  John  Ruskin's  work 
as  he  can ;  for  then  his  temperamental  caprices  and 
extravagances  will  not  confuse  the  mind,  and  the  pro- 
found beauty  and  nobility  of  his  gospel  of  art,  which 
is  also  one  of  life,  will  impress  the  soul.  But  Miss 
Crane  also  teaches  the  best,  the  virtues  of  honor  and 
reality,  of  fitness  and  thoroughness ;  and  she  applies 
it  to  every  thing.  She  does  not  say  exactly  that  one 

should 

"  Give  to  barrows,  pots,  and  pans, 
Grace  and  glitter  of  romance ; " 

but  she  shows  that  the  commonest  utensil  may  have 
these  foundations  of  excellence,  and  having  them  it 
will  also  have  a  true  and  worthy  measure  of  beauty ; 
Art  being  so  far  an  assistant  and  adorner  of  use  as 
it  shows  sympathy  with  it,  and  no  farther.  There  are 
illustrations  of  this  that  will  occur  to  every  reader 
when  he  begins  to  open  his  eyes  to  the  common  things 
around  him ;  and,  as  Miss  Crane  says,  Art  adds  a  new 
interest  to  daily  life,  by  teaching  our  eyes  to  observe 
common  things-  no  less  faithfully  than  uncommon  ones. 
Miss  Crane  finds  nearly  her  worst  example  of  unfit- 
ness  in  design  in  an  American  toilet-jug ;  and  this  is 
almost  the  sole  instance  of  the  British  insular  spirit  in 
the  book,  since  it  is  certain  that  no  nation  has  a  mo- 
nopoly of  vulgarity  in  such  matters,  and  British  designs 
are  apt  to  be  the  clumsiest  that  are  seen  in  the  inter- 
national expositions.  Of  teaching  ill  adapted  to  Ameri- 


Vi  PREFACE. 

can  life,  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in  this  book.  Indeed, 
the  Cranes  are  of  the  people,  and  have  done  their 
beautiful  work  for  the  people. 

It  is  the  highest  praise  for  such  a  book  as  this,  that, 
while  it  is  within  the  comprehension  and  lends  itself 
to  the  practical  service  of  all,  it  does  so  without  once 
losing  sight,  or  suffering  us  to  lose  sight,  of  the  prime 
and  perpetual  necessity  of  truth  in  Art.  It  gives  the 
impression  of  kinship  with  great  souls,  as  the  life  of 
Michael  Angelo  or  of  Beethoven  does.  Like  them, 
it  shows  that  all  that  is  worthy  and  enduring  springs 
from  the  eternal  verities,  as  Carlyle  called  them.  Con- 
sider for  a  little  what  Art  is,  and  what  its  meanings. 
We  are  not  thinking  now  of  the  toys  of  an  hour,  or 
the  fashions  of  the  day ;  not  of  the  pretty  trivialities  of 
ornament,  or  the  skill  of  graceful  design,  —  but  of  Art 
in  its  high  sense,  as  an  interpreter  of  Nature,  and  a 
link  in  the  divine  relationship  of  man.  The  comple- 
ment of  Science,  which  pursues  the  true,  and  of  Phi- 
losophy, which  reaches  after  the  good,  Art  fulfils  this 
trinity  with  the  beautiful ;  and  these  three  are  one. 
There  is  a  debasement  of  Art  which  descends  to  ugli- 
ness, just  as  there  are  philosophies  of  evil :  but  this  is 
the  work  of  false  conception ;  for  in  Art,  as  in  every 
thing  else,  the  loss  of  truth  is  the  loss  of  goodness  and 
the  loss  of  beauty.  Art,  therefore,  must  be  at  one  with 
Nature ;  they  being,  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  both 
the  servants  ot  His  providence.  Art  is  the  perfection 


PREFACE.  Vll 

of  Nature.  Were  the  world  now  as  it  was  the  sixth 
day,  there  were  yet  a  chaos.  Nature  hath  made  one 
world,  and  Art  another.  In  belief,  all  things  are  arti- 
ficial, for  Nature  is  the  Art  of  God."  The  mission  of 
Art  is  no  less  noble  than  this.  And  what  an  honorable 
and  holy  burden  is  thus  laid  upon  the  artist !  Like  the 
poet,  he  is  one  of  the  mediators  of  the  divine  mes- 
sages. 

Nature  being  the  Art  of  God,  if  we  search  for  and 
find  its  interior  charm,  we  shall  thence  be  able  to 
divine  the  charm  of  its  image,  human  Art,  which  must 
be  like  it.  Is  it  not  that  there  is  something  behind,  of 
which  it  is  the  mere  symbol  and  representative  ?  The 
surface  of  nature  is  illusion.  For,  look  upon  the  earth, 
its  grateful  green  fields  and  royal  forests,  its  wonder- 
ful flowers  and  leaves,  its  birds  and  myriad  things  of 
life,  its  generous  streams  and  its  majestic  hills :  it  is 
beautiful  to  us,  as  it  has  been  to  untold  generations 
before  us,  and  will  be  for  untold  generations  more ; 
and  yet  it  is  transient  even  to  us,  as  preachers  and 
singers  have  said  ever  since  man  has  thought.  The 
human  form,  most  beautiful  and  wonderful  of  objects, 
is  a  mere  semblance,  —  a  pinch  of  dust,  a  drop  or  two 
of  water :  it  is  not  real.  And  the  crowded  heavens 
that  are  awful  above  us,  —  for  remember,  that,  as 
Young  says,  "A  fixed  star  is  as  much  within  the 
bounds  of  Nature  as  a  flower  of  the  field,  though  less 
obvious  and  of  far  greater  dignity,"  —  we  know  that 


Vlil  PREFACE. 

they  shall  one  day  shrivel  as  a  scroll,  and  be  swept 
away.  It  is  the  underlying  consciousness  of  the  tran- 
sitory and  illusory  in  Nature,  that  gives  to  its  beauty 
the  perplexing  sense  of  something  hidden  and  secret, 
that  draws  its  lover  to  pursue  it  forever,  —  never  satis- 
fying, but  more  and  more  attracting. 

It  is  this  mystery  that  pervades  the  highest  Art,  and 
marks  the  presence  of  the  immortal  purpose;  it  is 
the  soul  of  beauty,  which  is  the  breath  of  divine  life 
breathed  into  the  human  handiwork,  expressing  and 
exalting  that  mystery  of  the  real  behind  the  illusory, 
the  eternal  behind  the  transient.  The  art  that  does 
not  help  on  the  higher  way  is  false  art ;  for  no  tech- 
nical power,  however  marvellous,  can  atone  for  de- 
fault of  the  inspiration  of  that  divine  beauty  for  which 
arts  exist,  the  goal  of  their  perfection,  — 

That  master-light,  the  secret  truth  of  things, 
Which  is  the  body  of  the  Infinite  God. 

CHARLES   GOODRICH  WHITING 
SPRINGFIELD,  June  25,  1885. 


CONTENTS. 


I.    INTRODUCTORY i 

II.    DECORATIVE  ART  —  FORM 35 

III.  DECORATIVE  ART  —  COLOR,    DRESS,    AND 

NEEDLEWORK 66 

IV.  FINE  ARTS I02 

V.    FINE  ART— SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE,  134 

VI.   FINE  ART  — PAINTING 164 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE  DRAWN  BY 

i.  PREHISTORIC  BONE  DRAWING.    .    .    .  Walter  Crane. 
13.  PART  OF  PARTHENON  FRIEZE.    ...         "          " 
35.  OBJECTS  OF  METAL,  GLASS,  AND  POT- 
TERY       Thomas  Crane. 

66.  PATTERN  FOR  CHAIR-BACK "          " 

102.  GROUP  FROM  RAPHAEL'S  DISPUTE  OF 

THE  SACRAMENT Walter  Crane. 

127.  VENUS  OF  MELOS "          " 

134.  TEMPLE  OF  POSEIDON "          u 

164.  LEONARDO'S  LAST  SUPPER *          " 

179.  MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  CREATION    ...        "          ". 


LECTURES    ON    ART 


FORMATION  OF  TASTE. 


I.  —  INTRODUCTORY. 

I  AM  sensible  that  the  title  of  my  lectures  will  have 
been  likely  to  produce  a  variety  of  expectations  in  the 
minds  of  my  intending  hearers,  and  perhaps  will  lead 
in  the  end  to  a  corresponding  number  of  disappoint- 
ments ;  for  the  lavish  use  of  the  word  "  Art "  in  these 
days  has  given  rise  to  such  a  number  of  false  impres- 
sions, that  the  word  seems  to  need  defining  afresh,  — 
its  functions  and  proper  application  to  need  marking 
out  all  over  again,  —  that  we  may  know  to  what  we 
are  committing  ourselves  when  we  talk  of  "  art-deco- 


2  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

ration,"  "  art-colors,"  "  art-fabrics,"  "  art-needlework," 
and  so  on;  and,  moreover,  what  is  exactly  meant 
when  people  say  —  as  I  most  earnestly  wish  they  would 
not  —  that  they  "go  in  for  high  Art."  The  word 
seems  really  to  have  lost  the  power  of  expressing  what 
those  who  care  for  it  in  its  right  meaning  would  have 
it  express.  Let  us  try  to  get  at  that  right  meaning, 
and  learn  to  use  it  properly.  "Art-decoration,"  "art- 
embroidery,"  and  the  like,  are  tautological  expressions. 
If  such  things  exist  at  all,  they  must  of  necessity  .be 
Art,  and  belong  to  it,  just  as  geography  and  chemistry 
must  of  necessity  be  Science,  and  belong  to  it.  The 
distinction  which  has  somehow  arisen  between  "  color  " 
and  "art-color"  is  a  quite  unreasonable  one,  and 
based  on  false  ideas.  Ifl*a  color  is  of  such  a  nature  as 
to  be  inadmissible  in  Art,  it  is  no  color  at  all,  prop- 
erly speaking :  it  is  a  stain,  a  dye,  a  pigment.  It  is 
easy  to  trace  these  expressions  back  to  their  origin. 
They  were  invented  by  shopkeepers,  to  characterize 
a  kind  of  goods  got  up  in  a  certain  style  to  please  that 
part  of  the  public  that  cares  for  fashion  and  novelty 
alone,  and  has  no  higher  aims  or  desires,  and  wishes 
to  have  none.  So  let  us  leave  such  expressions  to 
their  inventors,  who,  by  bad  imitations  of  the  good 
work  of  our  time,  seek  to  catch  our  fancy,  careless 
or  idle,  as  we  most  of  us  are,  or  else  too  busy  to 
pay  any  regard  to  such  matters.  There  is,  however, 
no  sort  of  lasting  satisfaction  in  merely  following 
blindly  the  fashion  of  the  day,  whether  it  be  in  house- 
decoration,  or  in  coloring,  or  in  dress,  or  in  pictures ; 


INTROD  UC  TOR  Y.  3 

for  it  seems  there  is  a  fashion  even  in  these.  Ideas 
hastily  caught  up,  and  adopted  without  reason  and 
consideration,  must  be  shallow  and  worthless  ones. 
The  love  of  novelty  is  opposed  to  the  production  of 
good  art,  which  is  in  its  nature  and  constitution  last- 
ing, living,  and  in  a  sense  immortal :  in  the  race  for 
novelty,  the  last  new  thing  runs  down  the  one  before 
it,  only  to  perish  in  its  turn,  because  it  deserves  no 
better  fate.  But  for  those  of  us  who  care  for  some- 
thing more  in  our  lives  than  fashion  and  novelty,  it  is 
worth  while  to  examine  into  the  real  nature  and  true 
meaning  of  Art,  so  as  to  possess  ourselves  of  all  the 
various  knowledge  and  pleasure  it  is  capable  of  giving. 
So,  to  guard  against  any  misconception  from  the 
beginning,  let  me  attempt  to  define  what  Art  is.  The 
word  in  its  original  sense  meant  force  or  strength ;  and 
it  was  applied  to  mechanical  work,  and  is  so  still. 
We  speak  of  the  art  of  weaving,  the  art  of  printing, 
the  florist's  art,  the  art  of  cooking,  and  so  on ;  and  in 
these  we  mean  to  express  the  result  of  man's  putting 
forth  his  hand  and  operating  on  Nature ;  and  Art  in 
its  widest  sense  has  come  to  be  "  human  labor  regu- 
lated by  human  design."  But  within  this  wide  sense 
are  other  senses  in  which  the  word  may  be  and  often 
is  taken :  such  as  Art  as  opposed  to  Science,  that  is, 
the  doing  of  a  thing  as  opposed  to  the  knowing  of  it, 
practice  as  distinguished  from  theory ;  and  then,  Art 
as  opposed  to  Nature,  and  with  this  we  shall  have 
something  to  do.  But  it  is  in  none  of  these  senses 
we  want  to  consider  it  to-day.  We  have  to  consider 


4  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Art  as  a  world  of  itself,  created  out  of  Nature  by  the 
hand  of  the  artist-workman.  Art  has  been  called  the 
"  flowering  of  man's  moral  nature."  It  is  a  natural 
growth  out  of  and  beyond  mere  material  necessities : 
to  it  we  owe  every  thing  in  the  whole  range  of  human 
productions  which  appeals  to  the  sense  of  beauty,  and 
the  thoughts  awakened  in  us  by  beauty.  The  artistic 
sense  by  which  we  appreciate  these  things  may  be 
counted  as  a  sixth  sense :  it  may  be  possessed  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  by  the  individual ;  but  it  exists 
in  every  one,  and  may  be  developed  by  training  and 
cultivation  like  the  other  senses.  To  cultivate  and 
exercise  judiciously  the  artistic  sense,  is  to  be  a  person 
of  taste.  To  possess  it  and  to  cultivate  it  in  an  ex- 
traordinary degree,  is  to  be  an  artist. 

I  said  that  to  understand  the  real  nature  of  Art  is 
to  possess  ourselves  of  the  various  pleasures  it  is  capa- 
ble of  giving.  For  I  must  premise  that  the  end  and 
aim  of  Art,  and  therefore  of  the  cultivation  of  the 
artistic  sense,  is  to  give  pleasure  in  the  common  things 
of  life  by  giving  to  them  beauty  of  form,  pattern,  color ; 
and,  next,  pleasure  of  a  still  higher  order  by  translating 
and  transforming  the  things  of  Nature  into  the  beauty 
of  picture,  statue,  or  building.  Nor  let  us  be  offended 
at  having  to  recognize,  that,  in  studying  Art,  we  are 
merely,  as  we  should  say,  seeking  after  pleasure.  It  is 
the  sort  of  pleasure  that  is  in  all  elevated  things,  and 
appeals  to  the  purest  and  most  intellectual  side  of  our 
nature.  There  can  be  no  degradation,  no  intemper- 
ance, in  the  cultivation,  the  indulgence,  of  the  artistic 


INTRODUCTORY.  5 

sense.  The  pleasure  it  subserves  lies  at  the  root,  and 
is  the  inspiration,  of  music  and  poetry,  as  well  as  of 
painting  and  sculpture  and  architecture.  It  is  beauty 
that  is  sought  for  in  all  these  ;  beauty  is  the  source  of 
the  pleasure  we  find  in  them  ;  and,  without  beauty,  any 
manifestation  of  these  great  arts  is  nothing  worth.  We 
ask  of  a  musical  composition,  not  only  that  it  shall  be 
in  strict  accordance  with  all  technical  rules,  but  also 
that  it  shall  enchant  us  with  the  beauty  of  its  melody 
or  the  sublimity  of  its  form ;  we  ask  not  only  that  a 
poem  shall  be  written  in  faultless  language  and  rhythm, 
but  that  it  shall  appeal  with  a  higher  beauty  to  the 
mind  and  the  heart :  so  it  would  not  be  enough  for  a 
picture  to  be  designed  according  to  the  strictest  laws 
of  composition  and  perspective,  or  for  a  statue  to  obey 
every  rule  of  anatomy,  or  for  a  building  to  have  every 
proportional  and  geometric  perfection.  There  must 
be  a  soul  of  beauty  and  sublimity  in  the  picture,  the 
statue,  the  building,  as  well  as  in  the  musical  composi- 
tion and  the  poem ;  and  then  by  them  we  shall  be 
made  to  feel  the  highest  pleasure  of  which  our  nature 
is  capable,  —  a  pleasure  which  nourishes  the  intellect 
in  delighting  the  senses,  and,  through  them,  the  heart. 
At  the  head  of  these  greater  arts,  the  fine  arts  prop- 
erly so  called,  —  poetry,  music,  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture,  —  at  the  head  of  each  of  these  stand 
great  names  with  which  we  are  all  familiar ;  of  their 
minds  and  works  we  know  something,  and  that  some- 
thing is  usually  the  basis  of  our  knowledge  of  those 
arts  themselves.  Our  admiration  of  the  music  of 


6  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Handel,  and  Bach,  and  Beethoven,  grows  deeper  as 
our  theoretical  understanding  and  practical  experience 
of  the  art  of  music  increases ;  the  more  we  learn  about 
the  nature  and  powers  of  language,  and  the  larger  our 
experience  of  life,  the  more  we  appreciate  and  admire 
Shakspeare  and  Dante  and  Goethe ;  and  with  inquiry 
into  a  study  of  the  nature  and  history  of  the  arts, 
joined  with  as  much  practical  knowledge  of  them  as 
may  be  possible,  we  shall  enter  the  more  fully  into  the 
minds  and  works  of  the  great  masters  of  sculpture  and 
painting,  —  Pheidias  and  Michael  Angelo,  Leonardo 
and  Raphael  and  Titian,  —  so  that  they  may  be  some- 
thing more  to  us  than  merely  great  names,  and  their 
high  reputation  may  be  justified  to  us.  So,  too,  is 
there  much  to  be  learned  and  enjoyed  in  the  marvels 
of  the  architecture  of  all  ages,  —  that  the  Greek,  the 
Romanesque,  the  Gothic,  shall  be  more  than  barren 
names ;  and  following  in  the  train  of  these  great  men 
and  periods  of  fine  art  come  a  crowd  of  lesser  arts, 
such  as  the  arts  of  the  potter,  the  carver  in  wood,  in 
stone,  in  ivory,  of  the  metal-worker,  the  weaver,  the 
embroiderer,  and  many  others,  —  arts  which  lend 
beauty  of  form  and  pattern  and  color  to  the  com- 
mon things  of  life,  —  each  of  which  has  laws  and  a 
character  of  its  own  to  be  studied,  in  accordance 
with  which  beauty  is  fitly  joined  with  use ;  the  one 
furthering  rather  than  interfering  with  the  functions 
of  the  other. 

All  this  opens  a  very  large  prospect.     But  every 
thing  must  have  a  beginning;   and  it   is   this   little 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  / 

beginning  that  I  want  to  make  in  the  minds  of  those 
for  whom  it  has  not  already  been  made,  —  a  little  gate 
into  that  great  field,  that  vast  kingdom  of  art,  which 
contains  within  it  things  small  and  great,  and  of  infi- 
nite diversity,  from  the  pattern  on  the  doorknob  to 
the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon. 

And  in  this  great  kingdom  Nature  and  History  must 
be  our  guides.  As  a  first  step,  I  propose  to  consider 
the  art  of  man  in  three  conditions  or  stages,  and  to 
offer  to  your  observation  an  example  of  each. 

1.  Art  in  its  original  stage,  purely  necessary  and 
useful. 

2.  Art  decorative. 

3.  Fine  art. 

In  the  first  place,  to  consider  art  purely  necessary 
and  useful,  we  are  led  back  to  the  earliest  ages  of  the 
world ;  and  we  must  look  for  a  moment  at  primitive 
man,  in  order  to  find  how,  out  of  the  purely  necessary 
and  useful,  grew  the  germs  of  that  love  of  beauty  which 
governs  the  kingdom  we  are  about  to  explore.  From 
the  time  of  his  first  existence,  man  has  to  defend  him- 
self against  Nature  and  against  his  own  kind,  against 
weather,  scarcity,  sickness,  and  times  of  war :  so  he 
must  provide  for  himself  food,  clothing,  shelter,  weap- 
ons. And  so  do  the  first  arts  arise :  he  tills  the 
ground,  he  navigates  the  sea  and  rivers,  he  exercises 
various  kinds  of  industries,  he  establishes  families, 
states,  and  some  sort  of  law  and  government.  With 
all  this  he  is  a  mere  animal,  only  somewhat  better  pro- 
vided than  the  rest  of  the  animals. 


8  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

We  have  been  told  of  bees,  and  ants,  and  beavers, 
and  the  like,  that  have  reached,  or  almost  reached, 
this  point,  —  this  stage  of  proficiency  in  the  arts  of 
pure  use  and  necessity;  but  the  difference  between 
them  and  us  is  this,  that  here  they  stop,  while  man 
goes  on.  The  cell  of  the  bee,  the  home  of  the  ant, 
reached  their  perfection  ages  ago,  and  their  makers 
and  inhabiters  are  content ;  but  the  powers  and  ne- 
cessities and  inclinations  of  man  go  on  ever  develop- 
ing and  multiplying.  And  then  there  comes  a  time 
when,  having  supplied  his  bodily  necessities,  he  ceases 
to  care  only  for  them ;  he  ceases  to  care  merely  for 
use,  —  he  begins  to  have  notions  of  beauty. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  second  stage,  —  art  decora- 
tive. "The  first  spiritual  want  of  a  barbarous  man," 
says  Carlyle,  "  is  decoration."  That  want  began  to 
develop  itself  ages  before  the  time  of  which  we  have 
any  certain  record ;  and  the  same  thing  is  still  to  be 
observed  among  tribes  of  savage  men  at  the  present 
day.  He  —  the  savage,  the  barbarous  man — scratches 
patterns  on  his  weapons,  his  paddles,  his  tools  and 
utensils  of  all  sorts,  and  on  his  own  body  as  well ; 
next  he  begins  to  weave  stuffs  for  his  wearing,  and 
to  trace  in  their  texture  patterns  —  first  geometric, 
then  imitations  of  animal  and  vegetable  life ;  in 
short,  he  learns  to  decorate  whatever  he  wears  or 
uses,  and  to  find  a  pleasure  in  the  object  beyond  its 
use,  a  pleasure  of  the  eye,  a  delight  in  beauty ;  and 
so  he  gradually  creates  a  new  and  wonderful  thing,  — 
the  artistic  sense. 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  9 

There  have  been  ages  of  which  there  is  no  histori- 
cal record  other  than  geology  can  furnish,  and  to 
which  she  has  given  the  names  of  the  stone  and  the 
bronze  ages,  from  the  material  of  the  implements  and 
objects  found  in  different  strata  of  the  earth's  crust 
To  the  earliest  of  all,  the  stone  age,  belong  only 
roughly  fashioned  flints,  laboriously  wrought  by  other 
flints  into  some  semblance  of  a  tool ;  and  one  feels 
that  the  difficulty  of  barely  living  must  have  been 
enough  to  occupy  the  whole  faculties  and  powers  of 
man  as  they  were  then.  But  to  the  later  bronze 
period  quite  beautifully  shaped  and  decorated  vessels 
belong,  and  even  personal  ornaments ;  but  still  there 
is  no  attempt  to  reproduce,  or  in  any  wise  to  imitate, 
the  human  form.  So  the  stone  age  may  represent  to 
us  the  first  stage,  which  I  have  attempted  to  describe, 
when  art  is  purely  necessary  and  useful ;  and  the 
bronze  age,  the  second  stage,  when  art  has  become 
decorative,  and  fulfils  needs  both  of  use  and  beauty. 

As  an  example  of  the  first,  the  stone  age,  I  will 
ask  you  to  notice  one  of  those  roughly  fashioned  stone 
hammers  which  are  found  everywhere  all  over  the 
world  in  those  parts  of  its  strata  which  correspond  to 
the  stone  age.  This  thing  is  prehistoric  :  it  has  served 
some  primitive  man  as  his  earliest  tool  or  weapon,  be- 
fore he  had  sufficient  knowledge  or  skill  to  invent  or 
imagine  any  thing  better.  Such  things  are  found  in 
Britain,  in  Asia,  in  the  arctic  regions,  and  among  the 
ancient  lake  and  cave  dwellings,  —  this  the  rudiment- 
ary phase  of  the  art  of  man. 


IO  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

And  next,  as  an  example  of  the  second,  the  decora- 
tive stage,  is  a  vase  found  in  Cyprus,  of  ancient  rough- 
clay  pottery.  It  has  reddish-brown  concentric  lines, 
resembling  very  closely  the  sort  of  ornament  still  be- 
stowed on  vessels  made  from  gourds  in  the  East ;  and 
there  is  even  a  rudely  drawn  bird  on  the  space  beneath 
the  spout.  This  form  of  vase  and  its  decoration,  hav- 
ing been  invented  in  very  early  times,  was  adhered  to 
for  centuries  with  but  little  change.  It  exemplifies  the 
need  and  taste  for  ornament,  at  a  time,  and  in  a  state 
of  civilization,  when  appliances  and  tools  were  rude, 
and  skill  in  dealing  with  them  had  not  advanced 
very  far.  Still  here  is  the  ornament,  —  the  desire  for 
beauty. 

Both  of  these  stages,  the  highly  civilized  nations  of 
the  past  as  well  as  of  the  present  day  have  gone 
through,  and  left  far  behind.  For,  no  sooner  has  deco- 
rative art  been  invented,  than  more  advanced  necessi- 
ties arise,  mental  sensibilities  grow,  and  need  to  be 
gratified.  Man  learns  to  look  before  and  after,  con- 
cerning the  things  of  the  mind,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  body.  Memory,  imagination,  reflection,  with  an 
extended  sense  of  beauty  derived  from  and  fed  by 
these,  lead  him  to  produce  writings,  paintings,  images, 
—  things  that  supply  no  bodily  need  or  pleasure  what- 
ever, but  needs  and  pleasures  of  the  intellect  and  the 
heart.  This  stage  must  be  reached  before  any  records 
of  the  past,  any  legend,  story,  or  song,  any  monuments 
or  noble  buildings,  any  representations  of  gods  or 
heroes,  any  rites  of  religion,  can  be  conceived  or  pro- 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  II 

duced ;  and  thus  time  brings  about  the  birth  of  the 
fine  arts  (our  third  stage) ,  —  music  and  poetry,  as  well 
as  those  which  belong  directly  to  my  subject,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  architecture. 

The  intimate  connection  which  subsists  between  all 
these  arts,  however,  will  be  more  particularly  dwelt 
upon  in  my  fourth  lecture.  Of  these  five  fine  arts, 
only  architecture  is  founded  on  any  material  use  or 
necessity.  I  say  founded  on,  merely ;  because  very 
plain  and  commonplace  buildings,  of  various  sizes  and 
degrees  of  strength,  would  give  us  all  we  actually  need 
for  dwellings  and  defences,  and  places  of  public  assem- 
bly. But  from  the  days  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  men 
have  wanted  more.  So  we  have  had  the  Egyptian 
pyramid,  the  Greek  temple,  the  Roman  arches  of 
triumph,  the  Byzantine  churches  and  mosques,  the 
Gothic  cathedrals  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  splen- 
did buildings  of  the  Renaissance.  These,  and  such 
as  these,  enriched  and  adorned  with  the  best  sculpture 
and  painting  of  their  various  periods,  are  the  very 
head  and  crown  of  all  that  man  has  ever  achieved : 
he  has  invented  these  glorious  means  of  expressing 
the  boundless  faith  and  hope  and  love  which  are  his 
eternal  heritage.  To  such  a  culmination  have  risen 
the  blind  instincts,  the  vague  imaginings  of  man,  —  the 
savage. 

And  this,  a  reduced  copy  of  part  of  the  frieze  of 
the  Parthenon,  —  the  triumph  and  perfection  'of  Athe- 
nian art,  —  is  my  example  of  the  third  stage.  I  shall 
have  to  consider  more  particularly,  in  my  fifth  lecture, 


12  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

the  causes  and  the  nature  of  this  perfection :  for  the 
present  it  is  enough  to  say,  that,  as  the  stone  hammer 
is  the  rudest  and  lowest  type  of  human  workmanship, 
this  sculpture  from  the  hand  of  Pheidias  is  the  best 
and  highest,  never  likely,  or  even  possible,  to  be  ex- 
celled in  any  future  age  of  the  world. 

I  have  now  roughly  sketched  the  three  stages  by 
which  Art  has  reached  so  great  a  place  in  the  life 
of  man;  how,  from  the  mechanical  arts  of  pure  use 
and  necessity,  arose  the  desire  and  practice  of  orna- 
menting the  objects  formed  by  these  arts ;  and  how, 
rising  higher  yet,  came  the  desire  for  embodying 
loftier  thoughts  in  things  more  beautiful  still,  —  the 
statue,  the  picture,  the  noble  building.  If  all  this  is 
made  clear  to  you,  you  will  see  the  scope  of  my  sub- 
ject, and  what  in  future  lectures  I  shall  attempt  to  set 
before  you. 

Setting  aside  the  first  stage  as  already  passed  and 
done  with,  we  shall  have  to  consider  those  decorative 
arts,  that,  still  resting  on  use  and  necessity,  seek  to 
add  beauty  to  the  things  of  common  life,  such  as  the 
painting  of  the  vase,  the  modelling  of  the  glass  vessel, 
and  the  coloring  and  pattern  of  wearing-stuffs,  and 
many  more.  Then  we  shall  come  to  the  consideration 
of  the  greater  ideal  arts  that  have  beauty  alone  for 
their  end  and  aim,  —  the  arts  of  painting,  sculpture, 
and  architecture.  I  shall  try  to  point  out  how,  with 
the  growth  and  development  of  these  greater  arts,  the 
decorative  arts  have  grown  and  developed  too,  through 
the  ages ;  that  there  have  been  periods  when  the  art 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  15 

of  some  great  nation  has  seemed  to  reach  ideal  per- 
fection for  one  charmed  moment,  and  then  has  sunk 
to  decay  and  almost  death.  Such  have  been  the  great 
period  of  Greek  sculpture  in  the  fifth  century  before 
Christ,  the  great  period  of  Italian  painting  in  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries.  I  shall  try  to  describe 
these  to  you,  and  their  fruits ;  and  to  show  you  how, 
unlike  these,  architecture  has  had  various  periods  and 
styles  of  equal  excellence.  In  leading  you  to  see  how 
the  common  world  fared  in  respect  of  Art  at  those 
great  periods,  I  shall  ask  you  to  consider  how  it  is 
faring  at  the  present  day. 

But  now  to  proceed  with  the  more  general  remarks 
that  belong  to  this  my  introductory  lecture.  And, 
before  quite  setting  aside  the  arts  of  pure  use,  let 
us  see  for  a  moment  to  what  an  extent  they  are 
carried  in  the  present  day,  —  arts  subservient  to  life, 
that  supply  our  needs,  apart  from  considerations  of 
beauty  or  taste.  From  the  earliest  times  these  arts 
have  been  increasing,  improving,  developing;  new 
necessities  are  still  arising  every  day,  and  new  con- 
trivances for  supplying  them  ;  and  the  primitive  needs 
of  food,  clothing,  shelter,  weapons,  have  grown  rather 
more  comprehensive.  Think  of  the  thousands  of 
arts  that  are  comprised  under  each  one  of  these  four 
heads,  —  animal,  vegetable,  mineral  substances,  ma- 
nipulated in  a  million  different  ways.  I  suppose  it 
would  be  impossible  to  find  anywhere  within  present 
reach  a  material  substance  that  has  not  been  modified 
in  some  way  by  the  hand  of  man  for  his  convenience. 


1 6  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Wood  is  cut  and  carved,  turned,  polished,  painted  ; 
stone  is  polished,  cut,  and  carved  ;  metals  are  melted, 
mingled,  moulded,  chased ;  animals  are  tamed, 
trained,  and  modified  by  breeding ;  the  very  flowers 
are  made  to  assume  shapes  double  or  single,  and  to 
vary  their  hues,  at  the  will  of  the  gardener.  The 
whole  creation  bears  the  signs  of  man's  labor  or 
training ;  and,  look  where  we  will  in  this  country  and 
in  these  times,  we  can  see  nothing  untouched  but  the 
sky  and  the  sea ;  and  perhaps  we  must  not  even  ex- 
cept the  sky,  at  least  in  London,  —  and  I  may  say,  in 
Lancashire  as  well,  —  for  it  often  looks,  through  the 
smoke  which  seems  to  form  it,  but  another  kind  of 
manufacture,  and  a  very  disagreeable  kind  of  manu- 
facture too  ! 

And,  in  these  manifold  labors  of  the  world,  there  is 
no  hand,  howsoever  idle,  but  bears  its  part.  We  all 
have  a  degree  of  practical  knowledge  of  some  purely 
useful  art ;  some  mechanical  dexterity,  at  least,  in 
managing  the  hammer  or  the  knife,  the  needle  or 
the  spade ;  some  skill  in  sewing,  in  cookery,  in  gar- 
dening, in  carpentery :  so  that,  at  need,  some  of  us 
could  play  the  part  of  Robinson  Crusoe  not  quite 
ungracefully.  Practice  in  these  things  helps  to  edu- 
cate the  eye  and  hand,  and  gives  competence  of 
judging  as  to  the  fitness  for  practical  purposes  of 
tools  and  material,  and  of  the  quality  of  any  kind 
of  workmanship ;  and  this  competence  of  judgment 
is  not  without  importance  for  my  present  purpose, 
as  I  shall  show  you  presently. 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  I  / 

We  have  seen,  that  as  man  extracts  a  use  from  every 
material  substance,  and  makes  it  serve  his  purpose  in 
some  way,  so  hand  in  hand  with  every  use  comes  also 
a  desire  for  beauty,  so  that  every  useful  object  has  its 
appropriate  (or  what  should  be  its  appropriate)  orna- 
ment. But  suppose  that  man,  in  thus  putting  forth 
his  hand  and  operating  on  Nature,  changing  her  raw 
material  into  Art,  —  suppose  he  produces,  instead  of 
use  and  beauty,  worthlessness  and  hideousness ;  out 
of  good  stone  and  clay  and  wood,  making  bad 
houses  and  bad  furniture  ;  out  of  good  coal,  making 
bad  magenta  dye  ;  causing  good  sound  wood  or  metal 
to  put  on  some  false  varnished  face  to  imitate  other 
woods  and  metals ;  using  his  own  wonderful  mechani- 
cal skill  and  dexterity  in  carving  nets  and  scales  of 
fish  out  of  wood,  and  feathers  out  of  metal,  and 
fringes  out  of  stone ;  spending  his  valuable  time  and 
brains  in  contriving  how  to  make  cotton  look  like  silk, 
and  paper  look  like  leather,  and  leather  look  like 
wood,  and  wood  look  like  stone ;  till  we  gaze  round 
us,  and  wonder  if  any  thing  is  what  it  ought  to  be. 

I  will  read  in  this  place  an  extract  from  a  lecture 
of  Mr.  William  Morris's,  as  he  expresses  what  I  next 
want  to  say,  so  much  better  than  I  could  possibly 
do:  — 

He  is  speaking  of  the  decorative  arts,  "  by  means 
of  which,"  he  says,  "men  have  at  all  times  more  or  less 
striven  to  beautify  the  familiar  matters  of  every-day 
life,  —  a  wide  subject,  a  great  industry ;  both  a  great 
part  of  the  history  of  the  world,  and  a  most  helpful 


1 8  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

instrument  to  the  study  of  that  history.  A  very  great 
industry  indeed,  comprising  the  trades  of  house- 
building, painting,  joinery  and  carpentery,  smith's 
work,  pottery  and  glass-making,  weaving,  and  many 
others,  —  a  body  of  art  most  important  to  the  public 
in  general,  but  still  more  so  to  us  handicraftsmen; 
since  there  is  scarce  any  thing  that  they  use,  and  that 
we  fashion,  but  it  has  always  been  thought  to  be  unfin- 
ished till  it  has  had  some  touch  or  other  of  decoration 
about  it.  True  it  is,  that,  in  many  or  most  cases,  we 
have  got  so  used  to  this  ornament,  that  we  look  upon 
it  as  if  it  had  grown  of  itself,  and  note  it  no  more 
than  the  mosses  on  the  dry  sticks  with  which  we  light 
our  fires.  So  much  the  worse ;  for  there  is  the  deco- 
ration, or  some  pretence  of  it,  and  it  has,  or  ought  to 
have,  a  use  and  a  meaning.  For  —  and  this  is  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  matter  —  every  thing  made  by 
man's  hand  has  a  form  which  must  be  either  beautiful 
or  ugly,  —  beautiful,  if  it  is  in  accord  with  Nature, 
and  helps  her ;  ugly,  if  it  is  discordant  with  Nature,  and 
thwarts  her.  It  cannot  be  indifferent.  We,  for  our 
part,  are  busy  or  sluggish,  eager  or  unhappy ;  and  our 
eyes  are  apt  to  get  dulled  to  this  eventfulness  of  form 
in  those  things  which  we  are  always  looking  at.  Now, 
it  is  one  of  the  chief  uses  of  decoration,  the  chief  part 
of  its  alliance  with  Nature,  that  it  has  to  sharpen  our 
dulled  senses  in  this  matter.  For  this  end  are  those 
wonders  of  intricate  patterns  interwoven,  those  strange 
forms  invented,  that  men  have  so  long  delighted  in, — 
forms  and  intricacies  that  do  not  necessarily  imitate 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

Nature,  but  in  which  the  hand  of  the  craftsman  is 
guided  to  work  in  the  way  that  she  does ;  till  the 
web,  the  cup,  or  the  knife  looks  as  natural,  nay  as 
lovely,  as  the  green  field,  the  river-bank,  or  the  moun- 
tain flint." 

"  To  give  people  pleasure  in  the  things  they  must 
perforce  use,  —  that  is  one  great  office  of  decoration ; 
to  give  people  pleasure  in  the  things  they  must  per- 
force make,  —  that  is  the  other  use  of  it." 

We  have,  indeed,  only  to  look  round  us  for  a  mo- 
ment in  order  to  verify  this  ;  to  become  aware,  that,  as 
every  material  substance  we  see  has  been  modified  in 
some  way  or  other  by  the  hand  of  man  for  his  use,  so 
there  is  no  finding  any  place  or  object  without  that 
"  touch  of  decoration  "  of  which  Mr.  Morris  speaks. 
Only  to  grow  accustomed  to  noticing  this  decoration, 
is,  for  my  purpose,  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  For 
instance,  no  door,  even  of  the  very  humblest,  is  satis- 
fied with  being  merely  a  means  of  ingress  and  egress  : 
it  must  seek  to  please  the  eye  in  some  way.  The 
lintel,  the  side-posts,  and  the  door  itself  have  some 
pretence  of  panelling  and  moulding  or  grooving ;  and 
it  is  stained,  or  painted,  or  gilded,  or  grained  and  var- 
nished, in  a  more  or  less  pretentious  style, : —  scarcely 
any  two  doors  are  alike,  —  and  its  necessary  furniture 
of  latch  and  handle,  and  key  and  finger-plate,  is 
made  ornamental  in  some  way,  with  the  intention  of 
pleasing  some  one.  Originally  it  pleased  both  the 
maker,  and  the  user ;  but  now  it  is  made  and  used  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and,  ceasing  to  notice  it,  we  have 


2O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

lost  the  pleasure.  The  railway  carriage,  too,  has  its 
mouldings  and  groovings  and  gildings,  its'  bits  of 
colored  glass  :  the  very  letters  of  the  name  of  the 
company,  and  the  number  of  the  class,  are  woven  into 
ciphers  and  monograms,  and  gilded  and  shaded,  and 
are  the  result  of  somebody's  taste.  It  would  be  tedi- 
ous to  spend  more  time  in  pointing  out  what  is  so 
obvious  to  everybody  if  they  only  use  their  eyes.  Still, 
it  adds  an  interest  to  life  to  notice  these  things,  and 
to  ascertain  for  ourselves,  by  continued  observation, 
that  there  is  no  object,  for  whatever  use  intended,  but 
has  something  bestowed  on  it,  either  color  or  pattern 
laid  on,  or  form  added,  not  conducing  to  its  use  in 
any  way,  —  that  something  being  decoration.  I  said, 
not  conducing  to  its  use.  I  am  sorry  to  say,  that,  in 
these  later  days  of  civilization,  we  often  see  ornament 
distinctly  hindering  use.  See  to  what  a  pass  civiliza- 
tion has  brought  our  fire-irons,  things  of  every-day 
use  and  necessity.  A  century  or  so  ago  they  were 
lightly  made,  of  a  size  and  shape  to  be  held  and  used 
easily ;  and  they  did  their  work  well.  Then,  as  luxury 
and  ostentation  increased,  the  poker  and  the  shovel 
and  the  tongs  became  larger  and  heavier,  so  as  to 
look  massive  and  handsome,  and  as  if  a  good  deal  of 
money  had  been  spent  upon  them;  their  shape  was 
altered  to  suit  new  and  unreasonable  notions  of  ele- 
gance ;  they  began  to  be  made  of  burnished  steel  and 
lacquer-work,  of  a  lustre  easily  tarnished,  and  labori- 
ously renewed ;  and  finally  they  left  off  work-  alto- 
gether, being  too  fine  for  it,  and  were  obliged  to  be 


INTRODUCTOR  Y.  2 I 

provided  with  a  humble  deputy  to  do  it  for  them.  Of 
the  same  kind  are  candlesticks,  that  must  be  pre- 
served like  exotics,  under  a  glass  shade,  or  call  it 
extinguisher;  curtain-poles  so  gilded  that  the  real 
work  must  be  done  by  iron  ones  hidden  behind  ;  and 
cushions  and  footstools  meant  for  repose,  and  to  that 
end  studded  with  hard,  cold  beads.  Now,  such  orna- 
ment as  that  is  clear  waste  and  folly,  and  wrong  from 
the  very  beginning.  The  instinct  for  ornament  in 
earlier  stages  of  civilization  is  never  found  to  lead  to 
such  a  sacrifice.  The  savage  does  not  so  over-deco- 
rate his  paddle,  his  knife,  his  tomahawk,  as  to  render 
it  useless  ;  and  a  real  and  capable  workman  or  work- 
woman has  the  same  true  instinct.  And,  to  recur  to 
what  I  said  just  now,  here  should  come  in  the  prac- 
tical knowledge  that  I  suppose  we  all  of  us  possess  in 
some  direction  and  in  some  degree,  and  which  we 
should  be  proud  of  possessing. 

An  accomplished  needlewoman  rejects  the  highly 
ornamented  and  tasselled  work-basket  with  its  tinselled 
implements ;  a  practised  writer  objects  to  a  gilded  and 
elaborate  inkstand,  and  a  gimcrack  penholder ;  and  a 
really  clever  amateur  cook  is  not  over-anxious  about 
the  trimming  of  her  apron,  so  that  it  is  of  stout  mate- 
rial, and  the  shape  that  will  best  protect  her  dress. 
To  expend  labor  in  disguising  use  and  falsifying  mate- 
rial, shows  an  utter  misconception  of  art,  and  igno- 
rance of  beauty.  Ornament  has  come  to  be,  in  these 
days,  a  thing  of  itself;  whereas,  as  such,  it  has  no  real 
reason  for  existing.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of  any 


22  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

thing  of  the  nature  of  a  picture  or  statue.  The  idea 
has  somehow  arisen,  that  a  thing,  if  called  an  orna- 
ment, however  useless,  cumbrous,  and  troublesome, 
must  be  prized  and  taken  care  of.  Now,  Mr.  Morris 
says,  "  Nothing  is  ornamental  unless  it  is  also  really 
useful."  This,  you  will  think  at  the  first  glance,  con- 
demns all  or  most  ornamental  objects  ;  but  on  exami- 
nation it  is  not  so.  It  condemns  groups  of  wax  flowers 
under  glass  shades ;  it  condemns  vast  crochet  anti- 
macassars ;  it  condemns  glass  fuchsias  at  the  end  of 
curtain-poles ;  it  condemns  huge  china  pugs  and  par- 
rots ;  it  condemns  all  china  and  glass  objects  which  will 
not  hold,  at  need,  flowers  or  fruit,  or  other  and  more 
substantial  things  for  which  china  and  glass  objects 
were  originally  intended.  I  do  not  mean  that  we  may 
not  use  china  and  glass,  and  metal  and  wooden  objects 
exclusively  as  ornaments,  —  as  their  peculiar  beauty  or 
rarity  may  lead  us  so  to  preserve  them  as  merely  to 
be  looked  at,  —  but  they  should  have  been  originally 
capable  of  fulfilling  perfectly  some  function  or  other, 
or  they  cannot  be  truly  beautiful ;  and  the  aimlessness 
of  their  structure  would  give  a  feeble,  worthless  appear- 
ance, no  matter  how  much  painting  and  gilding  or 
carving  they  had  received,  or  how  much  skill  of  hand 
had  been  expended  on  them. 

In  former  times,  or  earlier  stages  of  civilization,  that 
axiom,  "  Nothing  is  ornamental  unless  it  is  also  at  the 
same  time  really  useful,"  was  never  lost  sight  of;  but 
there  was  no  necessity  to  put  it  into  words,  it  was  acted 
upon  unconsciously.  Regard  was  had  to  the  appro- 


INTROD  UC  TOR  Y,  2$ 

priateness  of  the  ornament,  to  the  use  and  material  of 
the  object  it  was  intended  to  beautify ;  and  the  forms 
of  nature  were  studied  until  the  design  was  invented, 

—  found  out,  that  is,  —  exactly  suited  to  the  purpose. 
And  man's  eye,  accustomed  only  to  natural  objects, 
had  learned  no  false  taste  for  glaring  colors  and  exag- 
gerated form  ;  so  his  handiwork  had  real  fitness  and 
beauty.     I  believe  much  of  the  decoration  so  often 
bad  and  mistaken  in  these  days  is  a  survival  from 
those  better  times.     By  degrees,  delight  in  ornament 

—  delight  once  felt  both  by  the  maker  and  the  user  — 
ceased  to  be  spontaneous :   still  people  expected  to 
have  it,  and  to  make  it.     So  patterns  and  mouldings 
and  carvings  have  been  borrowed  and  copied  and  re- 
produced over  and  over  again,  like  a  tale  repeated 
from  mouth  to  mouth  until  it  has  lost  all  point  and 
meaning.     An  example  of  this  is  the  familiar  Greek 
key  or  fret  pattern,  —  a  simple  combination  of  hori- 
zontal and  perpendicular  lines  arranged  so  as  to  form 
a  continuous  running   pattern :  we  see  this  now  used 
in  all  sorts  of  inappropriate  ways  and  places,  —  fitted 
into  the  rounded  border  of  a  plate,  running  up  a  mus- 
lin curtain,  worked  in  shaded  wools  on  a  tablecloth, 
chopped  into  little  pieces  for  brooches  and  earrings. 
So  is  the  artistic  sense  in  modern  days  confused  and 
darkened  in  us  by  finding  ourselves  the  inheritors  of 
all  the  work  of  the  past,  —  ornament  of  all  ages  and 
countries,  —  which  we  mix  up  together,  and  apply  in 
all  sorts  of  incongruous  ways,  not  understanding  the 
original  motive,  or  not  caring  to  apply  it  properly. 


24  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Now  to  inquire  into  the  reason  of  all  this. 

We  are  accustomed  to  recognize  the  necessity  for 
intelligence  and  knowledge  in  every  other  department 
of  life  but  that  which  belongs  to  beauty  of  decoration, 
of  form  and  color :  taste  in  these  things  is  left  to  take 
care  of  itself.  We  all  readily  allow  that  education  and 
study  go  to  form  the  literary  taste,  the  musical  taste, 
and  even  taste  in  food  or  wine ;  but  the  artistic  taste 
is  left  to  form  itself.  Choice  in  form  or  color  is  usually 
quite  unguided  by  any  principle,  and  is  by  many  sup- 
posed to  be  unworthy  of  serious  thought.  We  do  not 
ask  the  bookseller  to  guide  our  taste  in  reading,  or  the 
music-seller  to  form  our  taste  in  music ;  still  less  do 
we  allow  the  cook  and  the  wine-merchant  the  uncon- 
trolled management  of  our  tables.  Yet  the  furnishing 
of  a  house  in  many,  if  not  in  all,  important  particulars 
is  commonly  left  to  the  upholsterer,  or  decorator  as  he 
prefers  to  be  called ;  and  as  he,  not  working  with  his 
own  hands,  takes  no  pleasure  in  the  work,  but  has  gain 
for  his  first  object,  so  his  only  idea  is  to  carry  out  what 
he  supposes  to  be  the  prevailing  style,  so  as  to  pro- 
duce the  most  show  for  the  money ;  and  the  result  of 
this  is  likely  to  be  a  most  unhappy  one  :  still  people 
are  content  with  it,  —  educated  and  refined  people 
too,  —  and  they  live  out  their  lives  complacently,  sur- 
rounded by  evidences  of  vulgarity  and  bad  taste  at 
which  they  would  be  horrified  if  they  had  ever  learned 
to  appreciate  them. 

It  is  instructive,  in  this  connection,  to  remark  the 
tastes  of  children  and  uneducated  people.  Theii 


INTROD  UC  TOR  Y.  2$ 

senses,  being  immature  and  undeveloped,  require  to 
be  strongly  appealed  to  in  order  to  receive  an  impres- 
sion. They  like  a  multitude  of  gaudy  colors,  glitter 
of  tinsel  and  gaslight,  loud  and  clanging  sounds  ;  and 
to  these  the  uneducated  vulgar  add  a  taste  for  power- 
ful flavors,  strong  odors,  unrestrained  emotions,  and 
circumstantial  accounts  of  horrors. 

Let  me  assure  you,  that,  in  the  region  of  art,  nothing 
is  more  common  than  to  meet  with,  in  otherwise  culti- 
vated people,  tastes  analogous  to  these.  Over-trimmed 
and  befringed  and  gilded  furniture,  intense  and  ill- 
combined  coloring,  violent  and  ungraceful  form,  and 
accumulations  of  useless  costly  trifles,  —  all  these  and 
more  are  to  be  found  in  many  a  household,  and  in 
sfiops  that  supply  them.  And  until  the  last  few  years, 
nothing  else  was  found,  —  in  the  shops  I  mean,  for  in 
houses  there  were  almost  always  some  more  graceful 
relics  of  a  better  time.  And  now  at  last  there  has 
come  a  great  change.  It  is  now  about  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago  that  a  small  circle  of  highly  cultured  per- 
sons, of  whom  Mr.  William  Morris  was  one,  and  Mr. 
Burne  Jones  another,  turned  their  minds  to  the  con- 
sideration of  how  to  improve  the  construction  and 
furnishing  and  decoration  of  dwelling-houses.  First 
they  set  to  work  with  their  own  hands,  and  made  draw- 
ings and  plans  and  patterns,  and  learned  to  weave  and 
dye  stuffs  for  their  own  use  ;  they  sought  out  intelligent 
honest  workmen  to  work  under  their  direction,  and 
to  carry  out  their  designs  in  solid  material  and  good 
workmanship ;  and  as  by  these  means  things  of  new 


26  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  strange  beauty  were  produced,  as  well  as  copies 
and  adaptations  of  good  work  of  past  time,  they  be- 
came known  and  sought  after,  first  by  those  specially 
interested  in  and  connected  with  Art,  and  afterwards 
by  the  shopkeepers  and  the  general  public,  who  set 
themselves  to  catch  a  superficial  idea  of  the  general 
effect  of  these  things,  and  to  imitate  and  reproduce 
them  in  coarser  and  cheaper  forms.  Some,  no  doubt, 
being  really  enlightened  by  the  new  ideas,  produced 
good  work  in  accordance  with  them,  and  so  began  the 
present  fashion  of  "art-furniture,"  "art-decoration," 
"art-colors,"  and  so  forth,  and  all  those  other  use- 
less terms. 

But  it  is  not  the  terms  alone  that  I  consider  to  be  in 
fault :  it  is  the  blind  adoption  of  mere  passing  fashion 
that  I  would  deprecate,  —  the  clothing  of  walls  with 
dull  and  dismal  papers  and  hangings,  the  filling  our 
rooms  with  black-wood  furniture,  and  the  purchase  of 
any  article  merely  because  it  happens  to  be  called 
Early  English  or  Japanese.  There  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  satire  lavished  in  "  Punch  "  and  elsewhere  on 
a  supposed  group  of  sesthetically  minded  people,  who 
are  described  as  living  only  for  Art,  and  expressing 
themselves  in  a  highly  foolish,  affected,  and  melan- 
choly manner.  Many  people  think  that  "  high  Art," 
as  they  call  it,  is  inseparably  associated  with  affecta- 
tion, and  melancholy,  and  dull  colors,  and  general 
darkness  and  dirt  and  discomfort.  This  is  certainly 
not  the  sort  of  thing  I  wish  to  advocate  :  the  art  that 
those  first  teachers  originated  is  an  art  of  simplicity, 


INTRODUCTORY.  2/ 

of  cheerfulness  and  brightness,  of  comfort,  cleanliness, 
and  hospitality,  and  is  a  help  to  good  and  healthy  liv- 
ing, and  not  a  hinderance  to  it.  What  I  want  to  show 
is,  that  there  is  a  difference  between  good  and  bad, 
between  beauty  and  ugliness,  in  all  the  furniture  and 
appliances  of  life,  as  in  other  tilings  ;  that  while  twenty 
years  ago  it  was  almost  impossible  to  get  a  well-shaped 
article  of  furniture,  or  a  stuff,  or  a  wall-paper,  of  grace- 
ful pattern  and  harmonious  color,  now  things  are  in 
a  more  hopeful  condition,  for  the  good  things  are  to 
be  had.  What  is  necessary  now  is  to  know  what  is 
good,  —  to  take  the  trouble  to  learn  the  difference  be- 
tween good  workmanship  and  bad,  delicate  ornament 
and  coarse,  good  color  and  inharmonious  and  tawdry 
color.  This  knowledge,  widely  spread  among  the  cul- 
tivated classes,  would  cause  the  decline  and  gradual 
disappearance  of  bad  art ;  if  for  no  better  reason,  that 
it  could  no  longer  be  made  to  pay.  It  is  part  of  my 
undertaking  to  lay  down  a  few  plain  principles  as  a 
guide  in  these  things. 

One  word  about  those  minor  decorative  arts  in  the 
practice  of  which  we  are  accustomed  to  employ  our 
own  individual  skill,  taste,  and  patience. 

I  have  heard  in  my  time  of  such  arts  as  decalco- 
manie,  potichomanie,  vitromanie  ;  of  leather-work  imi- 
tating carved  oak ;  of  wax-paper,  shell-flower,  making ; 
and  many  other  futile  industries,  of  which  I  can  only 
say  that  they  seem  to  be  some  of  the  mischief  specially 
provided  for  idle  hands  to  do.  These  particular  em- 
bodiments of  bad  taste  are,  however,  somewhat  out  of 


.28  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

date :  yet  some  of  the  more  fashionable  fancy-work  is 
not  less  mischievous,  for  some  of  the  same  reasons  that 
make  the  workman's  art  bad.  The  love  of  novelty 
and  of  ostentation  leads  to  a  misconception  of  the  end 
and  aim  of  ornament,  and  hinders  wholesome  interest 
and  pleasure  in  the  work.  How  often  do  we  hear 
sighs  of  weariness  and  distaste  from  some  luckless 
worker  of  a  huge  piece  of  fancy-work,  whose  only 
longing  is  to  get  it  finished  and  done  with  !  and  the 
secret  of  this  weariness  and  distaste  is  the  absolute  lack 
of  good  qualities,  not  in  the  worker,  but  in  the  work 
itself,  probably  both  useless  and  expensive,  and  neither 
chosen,  planned,  nor  prepared  by  the  worker.  To 
originate  and  carry  out  an  idea  of  one's  own,  were  it 
of  the  very  simplest,  would  afford  more  satisfaction, 
and  be  likely  to  lead  to  a  far  better  result,  than  the 
more  gorgeous  and  elaborate  prepared  work  of  the 
fancy  shops. 

My  remarks  on  dress  will  tend  the  same  way.  Not, 
indeed,  to  ignore  fashion,  and  to  go  about  to  construct 
strange  garments  of  our  own  invention,  —  I  am  of 
opinion  that  more  is  lost  than  gained  by  eccentricity 
in  these  matters,  —  but  as  there  is  generally  some  rea- 
sonable idea  at  the  foundation  of  the  prevailing  style, 
it  seems  a  better  choice  to  seek  for  it  and  carry  it  out, 
instead  of  exaggerating  and  helping  to  spread  abroad 
its  worst  features ;  at  the  same  time,  avoiding  a  too 
great  uniformity  by  cultivating  individuality  of  style. 

Now,  to  briefly  review  the  part  that  the  fine  arts 
play  in  our  lives.  Music  and  poetry  are,  indeed,  part 


INTRODUCTORY.  2Q 

of  our  true  inheritance ;  and  I  think  we  all  know  some- 
thing of  their  just  value,  because  some  of  the  best  of 
both  has  been  produced  in  our  time,  and  because  the 
study  of  them,  according  to  right  principles,  is  indis- 
pensable ;  no  system  of  education  would  be  complete 
without  them.  Not  so  with  the  rest,  —  painting  and 
sculpture  and  architecture.  The  real  study  of  these 
tilings  is  not  considered  an  indispensable  part  of  edu- 
cation. School  routine  generally  includes  a  little  draw- 
ing, but  of  a  mechanical  kind,  involving  no  taste 
and  but  little  principle.  Nevertheless,  every  person, 
whether  arrived  at  years  of  discretion  or  not,  thinks 
himself  qualified  to  judge  of  a  painting  or  a  statue. 
The  most  modest  say,  "  I  know  nothing  about  it,  but 
I  know  what  I  like ;  "  and  then  proceed  to  admire  all 
sorts  of  incompatible  and  incongruous  things.  In  all 
other  human  productions,  an  enlightened  and  reason- 
able person  sees  at  once  that  it  is  not  enough  to  know 
what  he  likes,  but  what  is  worth  liking;  but  respecting 
questions  of  taste  in  art,  he  thinks  himself  born  com- 
petent to  judge.  No  matter  though  he  has  never 
given  an  hour's  patient  consideration  to  the  subject,  or 
looked  carefully  at  a  good  statue  or  picture,  or  taken 
a  modelling- tool  or  a  drawing-pencil  into  his  hand  so 
as  to  form  an  experimental  notion  of  what  it  really 
means  to  translate  natural  forms  into  pictured  or 
sculptured  ones ;  with  all  this,  he  is  quite  ready  to 
pronounce  criticisms  and  opinions  on  any  work  of  art 
that  comes  within  his  reach.  The  only  way  to  form  a 
just  judgment  about  these  things  is  to  learn,  by  the 


30  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

study  of  the  masterpieces  of  art  that  have  come  down 
to  us.  from  former  times,  what  constitutes  the  greatest 
and  best.  How  can  a  man  who  knows  nothing  of 
Shakspeare,  Milton,  and  Dante,  pretend  to  judge  of 
the  poets  of  our  day  ?  What  sort  of  a  musical  critic 
would  he  be  who  was  unacquainted  with  Handel  and 
Bach  and  Beethoven?  So  neither  can  there  be  real 
criticism  and  enjoyment  of  painting  and  sculpture, 
without  some  amount  of  knowledge  and  appreciation 
of  the  great  masters  in  those  arts.  There  is,  I  know, 
a  generally  accepted  opinion  that  the  works  of  the  old 
masters  of  painting  are  worthy  of  a  great  but  distant 
respect,  chiefly  because  they  cost  great  sums  of  money, 
and  a  vague  credit  is  reflected  on  their  possessors, 
whether  nations  or  individuals ;  but  I  do  not  think  I 
am  wrong  in  saying,  that  though  the  names  of  Raphael, 
Titian,  and  Michael  Angelo  are  as  well  known  as  those 
of  the  poets  and  musicians  just  mentioned,  yet  few  of 
those  who  love  and  study  the  great  poets  have  cared 
to  inform  themselves  of  even  the  broadest  distinctions 
between  the  great  painters.  So  with  sculpture.  We 
have  often  been  told  of,  and  in  some  sort  believe  in, 
the  pre-eminence  of  the  Greek  ideal,  and  that  in  the 
Elgin  marbles  we  possess  examples  of  the  greatest 
sculpture  the  world  has  ever  seen  :  yet  very  few  peo- 
ple, even  of  those  who  live  in  London,  ever  go  to  see 
them,  or  try  to  enter  into  their  beauty ;  very  few  who 
would  not  think  spending  an  hour  or  two  at  the  British 
Museum  but  a  dull  way  of  passing  the  time.  And 
architecture,  which,  rightly  applied  to  the  construction 


INTROD  UC  TOR  Y.  3 1 

of  public  and  private  buildings,  should  be  a  source  of 
healthfulness  to  the  mind  and  body  too,  —  the  general 
ignorance  respecting  it  has  led  to  sad  results  in  our 
time,  such  as  the  defacement  and  so-called  restoration 
of  ancient  buildings,  by  which  so  much  of  their  beauty 
and  historical  value  has  been  swept  away ;  while  the 
only  thing  to  console  us  in  most  modern  buildings  is 
their  instability  and  poverty  of  construction,  which  we 
will  hope  will  soon  lead  to  a  substitution  for  them  of 
more  lasting  and  beautiful  structures  in  the  present 
revival  of  taste. 

The  two  great  teachers  of  art  in  our  day,  —  Mr. 
Ruskin  and  Mr.  Morris,  —  though  they  agree  as  to  their 
view  of  the  past  and  the  present,  and  as  to  eternal  prin- 
ciples of  right  and  wrong,  and  good  and  bad,  in  art, 
differ  completely  in  the  temper  with  which  they  regard 
the  future.  The  one  is  full  of  despair,  the  other  of 
hope.  And  it  seems  to  me,  that  unless  we  cling  with 
Mr.  Morris  to  the  hopeful  side,  our  own  private  efforts 
to  combat  ugliness  and  clumsiness  and  pretension 
will  be  lifeless  and  melancholy,  we  shall  allow  our 
sense  of  beauty  to  dwindle  from  scarcity  of  nourish- 
ment, and  art  will  decline  more  and  more  until  it  be- 
comes a  dead  letter.  But  let  us,  with  Mr.  Morris, 
hope  for  better  things.  He  says,  "  To  what  side,  then, 
shall  those  turn  for  help  who  really  understand  the 
gain  of  a  great  art  in  the  world,  and  the  loss  of  peace 
and  good  life  that  must  follow  from  the  lack  of  it?  I 
think  that  they  must  begin  by  acknowledging  that  the 
ancient  art,  the  art  of  unconscious  intelligence  as  one 


32  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

should  call  it,  which  began  without  a  date,  —  at  least 
so  long  ago  as  those  strange  and  masterly  scratchings 
on  mammoth-bones,1  and  the  like,  found  but  the  other 
day  in  the  drift,  —  that  this  art  of  unconscious  intelli- 
gence is  all  but  dead ;  but  what  little  of  it  is  left  lin- 
gers among  half-civilized  nations,  and  is  grown  coarser, 
feebler,  less  intelligent,  year  by  year.  .  .  .  This  they 
must  recognize,  and  must  hope  to  see  in  time  its  place 
filled  by  a  new  art  of  conscious  intelligence,  —  the 
birth  of  wiser,  simpler,  freer  ways  of  life  than  the 
world  leads  now,  than  the  world  has  ever  led." 

We  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  the  sight  of 
ugliness  and  exaggeration  and  deformity  in  the  com- 
mon appliances  of  life,  that  it  is  a  hard  task,  and  one 
requiring  a  good  deal  of  thought  and  study,  to  recon- 
struct our  notions.  The  first  step  is  to  give  up  old 
prejudices,  and  to  substitute  for  them  principles. 
Unless  we  are  content  to  let  the  good  things  of  art 
remain  a  sealed  book  to  us,  we  must  take  some  pains 
about  them.  Man  has  long  passed  the  early,  intuitive 
stage  of  good  taste,  —  "  the  art  of  unconscious  intelli- 
gence," as  Mr.  Morris  calls  it,  —  and  it  is  now  only  by 
pains  and  study  that  we  can  arrive  at  the  cultured, 
conscious  possession  of  taste,  that,  according  to  fixed 
principles  and  for  just  reasons,  accepts  and  chooses 
the  good  and  beautiful,  and  rejects  the  bad  and  un- 
worthy. "  Happy  is  he,"  says  Goethe,  "  who,  at  an 
early  age,  knows  what  art  is  ;  "  but  it  is  never  too  late 
to  learn.  And  when  a  start  is  once  made  on  the  right 

1  See  heading  of  this  chapter. 


INTRODUCTORY.  33 

road,  every  new  experience  is  a  lesson,  a  confirma- 
tion. 

It  may  be  thought  that  I  am  in  danger  of  taking  all 
this  too  seriously,  and  making  my  subject  of  too  great 
importance,  seeing  that,  as  I  have  acknowledged,  art 
can,  after  all,  be  but  a  source  of  pleasure,  —  an  edu- 
cated and  refined  pleasure,  it  is  true,  but  of  no  practi- 
cal use.  I  can  only  say,  that  the  love  of  art  is,  to 
those  who  understand  it,  closely  connected  in  the 
world's  history  with  all  that  is  noble  and  sincere  and 
temperate  and  great ;  and  it  has  been  said  very  truly, 
that,  if  one  learns  nothing  from  art,  one  becomes  some- 
thing by  studying  it. 

Then,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  you,  our  lives  in  every 
direction,  every  occupation,  are  filled  with  the  pres- 
ence and  influence  of  art.  And  as,  every  day  of  our 
lives,  we  are  called  upon  to  exercise  a  choice,  or  to 
express  an  opinion  bearing  on  the  subject,  does  it  not 
become  a  sort  of  moral  obligation  to  exercise  a  wise 
choice,  to  express  &just  opinion?  and,  since  there  is  a 
good  and  bad,  a  true  and  false,  in  art,  to  learn  to  distin- 
guish between  them?  as,  in  the  moral  world,  the  power 
of  choice  brings  with  it  the  obligation  to  choose  well ! 

And  now  to  gather  together  the  scattered  meaning 
of  all  I  have  been  saying. 

I  began  by  pointing  out  that  from  the  arts  of  pure 
use  and  necessity  arose  the  arts  of  ornament  and 
decoration  —  not  to  hinder  or  take  away  from  them, 
but  to  add  beauty  without  destroying  use ;  and  that 
above  and  beyond  these  rise  the  fine  arts,  existing  for 
beauty  only,  —  sculpture,  painting,  architecture. 


34  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Then,  let  me  remind  you  of  a  few  points  of  generrfv 
application. 

1.  That  the  general  aim  of  art  is  beauty;  and  the 
appreciation  of  that  beauty,  and  the  true  enjoyment  of 
it,  is  taste. 

2.  That  there  are  certain  principles  by  which  taste 
may  be  formed  and  guided. 

3.  That  these  principles  are  worthy  to  be  studied, 
since  we  cannot  escape  from  the  necessity  of  exercis- 
ing a  choice. 

This  will  form  the  ground- work  of  all  I  have  to  say 
on  future  occasions.  And  I  will  beg  my  audience  to 
help  me  in  the  clear  expression  of  my  meaning,  by 
taking  note  of  any  thing  I  may  seem  to  leave  obscure 
or  otherwise  unsatisfactory ;  and  I  hope  very  much  to 
have  some  questions,  if  not  objections,  to  answer,  as 
by  that  means  I  may  amend  the  shortcomings  to 
which  I  must  needs  be  liable  in  dealing  with  so  large 
and  difficult  a  subject. 

Goethe  says  somewhere  that  one  should  contrive 
every  day  to  hear  some  good  music,  to  look  at  a  beau- 
tiful picture,  and,  if  possible,  to  speak  a  few  sensible 
words.  The  first  two  should  be  easy  enough  here, 
and  in  the  world  of  to-day  ;  and  I,  for  one,  should  like 
to  be  allowed  to  think  I  had  fulfilled  the  last  require- 
ment also.  At  all  events,  I  beg  you  to  believe  that 
any  deficiencies  in  sense  and  reason  are  not  due  to 
the  ideas  and  principles  belonging  to  my  subject,  but 
rather  to  my  imperfect' expression  of  them. 


II.  — DECORATIVE  ART  — FORM. 

IN  the  last  lecture,  I  attempted  to  describe  to  you 
the  origin  and  nature  of  the  useful  arts,  —  "  operations 
of  the  hand  and  the  intelligence  of  man  together,"  the 
intention  of  which  is  to  supply  his  wants  and  necessi- 
ties ;  and  I  showed  you,  that,  in  almost  every  object 
produced  by  these  arts,  there  is  something  added  over 
and  above  its  use  ;  that  something  being  ornament,  — 
man's  expression  of  pleasure  in  beauty ;  and  in  this 
way  have  the  decorative  arts  arisen. 

I  propose  to  consider  to-day  the  various  forms  in 
which  we  are  chiefly  familiar  with  these  arts,  how  they 
are  rightly  applied,  to  what  extent  they  are  rightly 
carried,  and  what  kind  and  degree  of  satisfaction  and 
of  pleasure  we  are  to  expect  from  each  of  them. 

I  am  going  to  speak  of  the  various  objects  of  every- 
day use  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  —  productions 
of  the  arts  of  pottery,  glass-making,  metal,  stone,  and 

35 


36  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

wood  work,  and  others.  These  arts,  as  I  have  said, 
began  to  exist  ages  before  the  beginnings  of  history. 
And  in  those  earlier  times  the  word  and  thing  "  manu- 
facture" in  the  modern  sense  had  no  existence ;  every 
article  of  use,  as  well  as  the  ornament  belonging  to  it, 
proceeded  directly  from  the  hand  of  man :  but  he 
has  since  invented  thousands  of  mechanical  means  of 
saving  the  work  of  his  hand  by  pressing  the  other 
forces  of  nature  into  his  service  ;  he  has  not  shortened 
the  hours  of  his  labor,  but  increased  the  amount  of 
work  done  in  them,  and  continual  new  inventions 
promise  to  increase  it  still  further.  But  yet,  in  spite 
of  wonder-working  machines,  the  human  hand  remains 
"  the  most  perfect  agent  of  material  power  existing  in 
the  universe ; "  and,  the  more  delicate  and  yielding 
the  substance  it  works  on,  the  higher  the  execution. 
"  All  art,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  worthy  the  name,  is  the 
energy,  neither  of  the  human  body  alone,  nor  of  the 
human  soul  alone,  but  of  both  united,  one  guiding 
the  other;  good  craftsmanship  and  work  of  the  fin- 
gers, joined  with  good  emotion  and  work  of  the 
heart." 

So  that  this  lies  at  the  root  of  all  good  decorative 
work,  that  it  must  not  be  a  so-called  manufacture 
merely,  it  must  be  a  direct  product  of  the  human 
hand ;  and  of  course  that  was  the  original  meaning  of 
the  word  "  manufacture."  We  all  recognize,  the  very 
shopkeepers  recognize,  the  superiority  of  hand-work 
to  machine-work  in  all  kinds  of  things.  If  a  garment 
made  by  the  hand  is  better  and  more  valuable  than 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  3/ 

• 

one  made  by  the  sewing-machine,  —  and  in  the  matter 
of  lace,  we  carry  this  feeling  so  far  as  to  call  the 
hand-made  lace  real,  and  the  machine-made  lace  sham, 
—  should  we  not  all  the  more  be  able  to  appreciate 
the  superiority  of  hand-carving  over  machine-carving, 
of  hand-painting  over  machine  color-printing?  And 
yet  not  everybody  has  learned  to  know  the  difference. 
You  will  think,  perhaps,  that  I  want  to  bring  back  the 
days  of  black-letter  manuscripts  and  hand-loom  weav- 
ing ;  and  though  I  do  certainly  think  these  are  more 
interesting  now,  and  were  more  thought  of  in  their 
own  day,  than  the  power-loom  weaving  and  cheaply 
printed  books  of  this,  yet  I  know  that  the  world  can- 
not stand  still,  and  that  there  is  much  advantage  in 
the  cheapness  and  rapid  production  of  these  things ; 
and  that,  as  far  as  the  preparation  for  use  of  the  raw 
material  is  concerned,  manufacture  must  needs  have  it 
all  her  own  way,  and  also  as  concerns  decoration,  in 
so  far  as,  when  a  design  for  dress  or  furniture  stuffs, 
carpets,  and  wall-papers,  has  been  made,  it  must  be 
reproduced  and  repeated  by  machinery  to  make  it 
available.  These  things  are  very  properly  woven  or 
printed,  and  then  sold  by  the  yard,  because  they  have 
to  be  used  in  quantities  and  masses.  Not  so  with 
things  of  which  quantity  is  not  required,  —  wood-carv- 
ing, for  instance,  which  is  not  a  necessity  in  the  same 
sense  that  those  others  are ;  which  loses  all  beauty, 
and  with  it  all  reason  for  existing,  when  it  is  turned  out 
by  the  machine  at  so  much  a  yard.  So  with  machine- 
painted  pottery  and  china,  machine-woven  crewel- 


38  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

work,  chromolithographs,  cast  instead  of  wrought 
metal-work,  and  machine-made  jewellery.  These 
things  are  to  real  decoration  what  a  barrel-organ  is  to 
music.  Let  machines  be  used  for  hard  drudgery  and 
necessary  toil,  but  let  us  at  least  have  our  ornament 
done  by  hand. 

One  difficulty  about  hand-work  is  its  high  price, 
and  of  course  machine-work  has  the  corresponding 
advantage  of  cheapness ;  but  I  have  to  say  once  for 
all  that  you  cannot  get  good  art  cheap.  Mr.  Ruskin 
says,  "  Of  one  thing  you  may  be  sure  :  that  art  which 
is  produced  hastily  will  also  perish  hastily,  and  that 
what  is  cheapest  to  you  now  is  likely  to  be  dearest  in 
the  end.  .  .  .  [As  to  the  cheap  work  of  the  day,]  we 
don't  like  and  can't  like  that  long ;  but  when  we  are 
tired  of  one  bad  cheap  thing,  we  throw  it  aside,  and 
buy  another  bad  cheap  thing,  and  so  keep  looking  at 
bad  things  all  our  lives.  Now,  the  very  men  who  do 
that  quick,  bad  work  for  us  are  capable  of  doing  per- 
fect work.  Only,  perfect  work  can't  be  hurried,  and 
therefore  it  can't  be  cheap,  beyond  a  certain  point." 

If  we  ourselves,  any  of  us,  possess  natural  capa- 
bilities for  the  arts,  and  know  something  of  the  delicacy 
of  hand,  the  accuracy  of  eye,  the  trained  understand- 
ing and  insight,  that  go  to  invent,  arrange,  and  carry 
out  satisfactorily  the  smallest  piece  of  original  work 
(I  am  not  speaking  of  a  copy  or  an  imitation), 
whether  it  be  carving,  or  china-painting,  or  embroidery, 
we  should  not  grudge  to  pay  a  fair  price  for  these 
things,  when  we  have  occasion  to  buy  them ;  and  we 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  39 

should  consent  not  to  have  them  at  all,  rather  than 
take  imitations  in  machine-work,  just  as,  rather  than 
wear  sham  jeweller}',  we  would  go  without  it  altogether. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  hand-work  in  decoration 
is  necessarily  good,  but  that  all  good  work  is  hand- 
work. 

One  defect  in  mechanical  work  is  its  over-finish. 
The  gloss  on  cloth,  which  is  a  beauty  to  the  eye  of 
the  draper,  is  an  abomination  to  the  eye  of  the  artist. 
Marble  will  take  a  high  polish,  but  the  sculptor  leaves 
this  quality  to  the  mantlepiece  manufacturer.  Lines 
may  be  too  sharp,  and  forms  too  distinct.  This  over- 
finish  is  mainly  due  to  division  of  labor.  Division  of 
labor  is  good  for  pins,  but  bad  for  works  of  art.  "  The 
ornament "  (I  quote  from  a  long- since- printed  maga- 
zine-article) "  which  begins  with  the  mere  draughts- 
man, and  ends  with  the  mere  salesman,  deteriorates  at 
every  stage,  in  its  change  of  hands,  from  the  original 
design."  According  to  the  ordinary  system  of  pro- 
ducing jewellery,  the  design  has  been  made  by  one 
man,  the  dies  sunk  by  another,  the  striking-up  by  a 
third,  some  foliage  and  filagree  work  added  by  a  fourth, 
and  some  shallow,  scratchy  engraving  to  complete  the 
pattern  by  a  fifth ;  and  it  becomes  what  the  accom- 
plished shopman  who  sells  it  calls  "  a  truly  sweet  thing 
in  bracelets,  of 'the  newest  and  most  original  design." 
In  days  when  goldsmithery  was  an  art,  the  artist  sat 
in  his  stall  and  took  his  orders  himself.  And  in  these 
days,  if  those  who  use  would  take  the  trouble  to  find 
out  those  who  make,  and  deal  at  first  hand  with  them, 


4O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

not  only  would  they  get  much  better  and  cheaper 
articles  than  through  the  medium  of  the  shopman, 
but  they  would  get  much  more  pleasure  out  of  the 
things  they  buy,  as  the  workman  would  get  more 
pleasure  out  of  the  things  he  makes.  It  is  often  pos- 
sible to  deal  directly  with  the  workman,  particularly 
about  country  neighborhoods,  in  such  things  as  car- 
penter's work,  for  instance.  In  London,  indeed,  it  is 
hardly  ever  possible  to  get  at  the  working  carpenter, 
the  working  jeweller,  the  working  dressmaker :  there 
is  always  some  very  smiling  and  obliging  shop  man  or 
woman  between  us  and  the  worker,  the  person  whom 
I,  for  one,  the  most  want  to  see.  It  is  a  great  pity 
that  those  who  can  give  intelligible  instructions  and 
designs  should  not  insist  on  seeing  in  the  flesh  the 
very  person  who  is  to  carry  them  out. 

Since  the  importation  of  so  much  Japanese  art  into 
England,  we  have  had  many  opportunities  of  ad- 
miring the  delicacy,  the  grace,  of  the  construction  of 
all  sorts  of  objects,  of  bamboo,  of  wood,  of  china. 
Setting  aside  for  the  present  all  mention  of  the  Jap- 
anese sense  of  color  (so  exquisite  before  they  set 
themselves  to  please  the  European  taste),  the  form  of 
all  things  of  their  manufacture  is  so  varied,  so  light, 
and  still  each  so  fully  answering  its  different  use,  that 
it  puts  to  shame  our  heavy  and  solid,  often  less  ser- 
viceable, constructions.  Sir  Edward  Reed,  in  his 
book  on  Japan,  puts  his  ringer  on  the  inner  cause  of 
this  excellence.  He  says,  "  I  have  watched  the  poor 
artisan  laboring  at  his  work  with  an  earnestness  and 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  41 

love  such  as  I  never  beheld  out  of  Japan ;  and  the 
very  features  of  the  workmen  testify  to  their  happi- 
ness, and  to  the  love  with  which  they  perform  their 
pains-taking  labor.  No  thought  of  gain  appears  to 
enter  their  minds,  and  no  touch  is  spared  which  will 
make  the  work  more  lovely."  And  this  is  the  great 
secret  of  excellence  in  decoration,  in  every  thing  that 
pertains  to  Art,  that  the  artist  workman  should  take 
delight  in  his  work.  About  how  many  of  the  com- 
mon decorations  of  a  room  can  this  be  said? 

When  I  observe  the  thousands  of  nameless  trifles 
that  crowd  the  shops  where  they  sell  "  fancy  articles," 
especially  about  Christmas  time,  —  the  useless  tawdry 
bits  of  glass,  china,  and  metal-work ;  vases  that  will 
hold  nothing,  candlesticks  that  won't  carry  candles, 
lamps  that  won't  burn,  penwipers  that  refuse  to 
wipe  your  pen,  baskets  that  will  hold  nothing,  be- 
sides numbers  of  articles  that  do  not  even  pretend  to 
have  a  use,  —  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  misery 
and  grinding  poverty  that  alone  could  drive  intelligent 
human  creatures  to  get  their  living  by  making  them. 
Any  thing  worth  calling  a  living,  they  cannot  possibly 
get.  The  things  grow  cheaper,  year  by  year,  and  that 
can  be  the  only  reason  why  people  buy  them  ;  else,  if 
they  thought  about  the  matter,  or  even  cared  for  the 
things  themselves,  how  could  they  bear,  as  Mr.  Morris 
says,  "  to  pay  a  price  for  a  piece  of  goods  that  will 
help  to  trouble  one  man,  to  ruin  another,  and  to 
starve  a  third"?  In  al \vays  wanting  novelty  in  these 
things,  we  do  indeed  obey  some  better  instinct.  It  is 


42  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

because  the  thing  is  bad,  that  it  is  so  soon  got  rid  of: 
we  must  have  a  change  from  bad,  even  if  it  be  only 
to  newer  bad. 

Some  details  of  the  manufacture  of  a  fancy  article 
came  under  my  knowledge  lately  in  London.  The 
evening  occupation  of  some  educated  girls,  to  whom 
it  was  a  necessity  to  earn  money,  was  to  paint  on 
pieces  of  looking-glass,  cut  ready  and  sent  them  by 
the  manufacturer,  little  groups  of  figures  or  flowers  in 
oil-color.  They  received  for  each  group  fourpence 
each,  and  would  do  two  or  three  in  an  evening. 
These  were  returned  to  the  manufacturer,  who  sur- 
rounded them  with  a  gilt  or  lacquered  frame;  and 
they  were  sold  to  the  public  as  decorative  objects  to 
hang  against  a  wall.  Being  on  looking-glass,  of  course 
if  you  tried  to  look  at  your  own  reflection,  it  was 
obscured  by  the  painting,  and  if  you  looked  at  the 
painting,  it  was  confused  by  the  reflection;  and  so, 
from  any  point  of  view,  entirely  worthless. 

"For,"  says  Mr.  Morris,  "whereas  all  works  of 
craftsmanship  were  once  beautiful,  unwittingly  or  not, 
they  are  now  divided  into  two  kinds,  —  works  of  art, 
and  non-works  of  art.  Now,  nothing  made  by  man's 
hand  can  be  indifferent :  it  must  be  either  beautiful 
and  elevating,  or  ugly  and  degrading."  Can  we  not 
carry  about  us  in  the  world,  can  we  not  be  guided  in 
our  purchases  by,  some  such  thoughts  as  these,  and 
take  care  never  to  buy  a  cheap,  ill-made,  useless  arti- 
cle, merely  because  it  catches  our  fancy?  Let  us 
consider  if  there  is  good  work  in  it,  —  honest  material, 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  43 

actual  use,  —  and  if  so,  let  us  pay  for  it  a  fair  price, 
and  we  shall  be  doing  what  we  can  to  help  on  the 
good  cause  of  promoting  happy  toil  and  successful 
labor ;  in  short,  of  making  decorative  art  to  be  again 
what  it  once  was,  —  "  an  art  made  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people,  a  joy  to  the  maker  and  user." 

In  Mr.  Ruskin's  "  Two  Paths "  I  find  a  principle 
laid  down  that  I  am  convinced  is  perfectly  sound,  and 
easy  of  application  in  these  matters  :  — 

"  The  true  forms  of  conventional  ornament  consist 
in  the  bestowal  of  as  much  beauty  on  the  object  as 
shall  be  consistent  with  its  material,  its  place,  and  its 
office." 

Every  object,  then,  that  we  admit  into  our  houses, 
should  be  able  to  sustain  with  credit  the  following 
inquiries :  — • 

Does  it  appear  to  be  made  of  the  material  of  which 
it  really  is  or  ought  to  be  made? 

Is  it  appropriate  to  the  place  for  which  it  is  in- 
tended ? 

Does  it  declare  its  use  or  office,  and  seem  fit  for  it  ? 

Let  us  examine  a  little  into  the  application  of  each 
separate  requirement.  The  first,  you  see,  condemns 
all  imitations  of  a  substance,  especially  when  the  ob- 
ject is  not  likely  to  have  been  made  of  that  substance. 
Such  are  doors  painted  in  bronze,  sham  jewellery,  paper 
flowers,  glass  colored  to  look  like  china,  plaster  to 
look  like  iron  and  bronze,  and  many  more.  It  seems 
a  very  strange  thing,  when  one  reflects,  that  it  should 
be  supposed  that  we  all  take  pleasure  in  a  thing  that 


44  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

pretends  to  be  something  else  than  it  appears,  and 
that  the  deception  should  be  pointed  out  to  us  as  a 
recommendation.  The  advertisement  that  assures  us 
that  Paris  diamonds  and  Abyssinian  jewellery  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  the  real  thing ;  the  shopkeeper 
who  tells  us  that  some  stuff  of  mixed  material  has 
quite  the  appearance  of  silk,  and  that  a  silk-finished 
velveteen  could  easily  be  mistaken  for  velvet,  —  all 
this  is  intended  to  appeal,  and  really  does  appeal,  to 
the  tastes  and  wants  of  a  large  class.  But  how  much 
better  and  more  honest  is  it  to  know  what  the  espe- 
cial article  we  want  ought  to  be  made  of,  and  to  see 
that  we  get  it ;  silk  honestly  silk,  and  woollen  honestly 
woollen,  and  cotton  honestly  cotton,  and  linen  really 
and  truly  linen;  and  when  the  manufacturers  find 
what  is  expected  of  them,  they  will  supply  it  accord- 
ingly. It  must  have  been  inappropriate  and  perish- 
able material  that  first  put  it  into  the  careful  house- 
wife's mind  to  provide  an  extra  case  or  cover  for 
various  household  objects,  —  oilcloth  or  drugget  to 
cover  the  stair-carpeting,  holland  covers  for  the  fur- 
niture, and  antimacassars  over  them  again ;  oilcloth 
to  cover  tables,  and  table-covers  to  cover  the  oil- 
cloth, and  mats  to  save  the  table-cloth,  and  much 
more  of  the  same  kind.  In  the  first  place,  the  mate- 
rials used  should  be  appropriate  and  serviceable  ;  and 
in  the  second,  people  should  not  be  ashamed  of  the 
signs  of  honest  wear  in  them.  Still,  for  my  part,  if  I 
must  cover  things  up  at  all,  I  would  cover  them  up 
when  they  were  really  shabby  rather  than  while  they 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  45 

were  fresh.  And  when  this  system  of  covers  extends 
itself  to  paper  covers  for  flower-pots,  china  cases  and 
covers  for  sardine-boxes,  silvered  perforated  card-board 
cases  for  match-boxes,  and  such  like,  it  seems  to  ex- 
press a  dislike  to  the  honest  plainness  and  simplicity, 
really  right  and  appropriate,  of  the  things  themselves, 
and  a  false  refinement  and  love  of  disguise.  It  is  the 
same  feeling  that  leads  people  to  call  shops  repositories 
and  emporiums,  and  florists  to  call  themselves  "  horti- 
cultural furnishers."  Simplicity  and  plain  dealing  in 
the  material  of  household  goods  and  appliances  will 
lead  us  a  long  way  in  the  direction  of  taste.  And  we 
have  high  authority  for  feeling  the  dignity  and  admira- 
bleness  of  even  a  very  humble  function  well  performed. 
Does  not  George  Herbert  say,  — 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  Thy  laws 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine  "  ? 

Now,  as  to  the  second  requirement.  The  various 
rooms  in  our  houses  are  intended  for  various  uses  and 
occasions ;  and  natural  instinct  for  convenience  leads 
us  to  furnish  them  in  accordance  with  these  uses  and 
occasions,  —  the  dining-room,  solid  and  severe,  with 
large  and  steady  furniture  adapted  to  serious  needs ; 
the  kitchen,  full  of  useful  homely  appliances,  kept 
bright  and  clean ;  and  the  drawing-room,  with  its 
books  and  pictures  and  elegancies,  suited  for  leisure 
and  social  purposes,  and  therefore  rightly  the  most 
decorated  room  in  the  house.  So  bearing  the  differ- 
ent functions  of  each  room  in  mind,  and  furnishing 


46  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

them  in  accordance  with  each,  we  get  a  general  sense 
of  order  and  appropriateness.  All  this  is  obvious 
enough,  and  is  generally  sufficiently  well  carried  out. 
Only  very  often,  in  minor  appliances,  the  want  of  the 
feeling  for  appropriateness  makes  itself  felt.  A  coal- 
scuttle is  an  excellent  and  useful  thing  in  its  way  and 
in  its  appropriate  place  ;  but  why  have  it  in  miniature 
on  our  tables,  and  scoop  salt  or  sugar  out  of  it? 
Wheelbarrows  and  buckets,  rink-skates  and  perambu- 
lators, used  for  similiar  purposes,  are  really  less  con- 
venient than  a  small  dish  or  bowl  really  designed  for 
use,  without  any  ulterior  notion  of  ingenuity  or  con- 
ceit. A  tea-kettle  in  the  form  of  a  drum,  with  the 
sticks  for  handles ;  a  toast-rack  formed  of  wreaths  of 
ivy  (what  has  ivy  to  do  with  toast?),  or  rifles  piled  in 
a  very  unmilitary  manner ;  a  biscuit-box  in  the  shape 
of  a  coal-box ;  gilt  chain  cables  for  holding  back  cur- 
tains, —  are  examples  of  the  same  thing  that  occur  to 
me,  but  a  large  and  very  astonishing  list  could  very 
soon  be  collected.  It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Morris  says,  that 
the  best  designed  and  constructed  things  in  a  house 
are  generally  found  in  the  kitchen  ;  but  that  is  because 
they  fulfil  their  use,  and  are  appropriate  to  their  place, 
both  of  which  qualities  they  lose  when  transported  to 
the  drawing-room. 

Now,  as  to  the  third  requirement,  which  in  its  appli- 
cation is  closely  connected  with  the  second.  All  things 
of  common  use  have  their  appropriate  form,  which, 
when  once  discovered,  should  be  used  and  repeated 
without  disguise.  Thus  a  salt-cellar  is  most  really  con- 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  47 

venient  when  made  of  glass,  of  a  simple  oblong  shape, 
so  as  not  to  be  easily  upset,  that  the  spoon  may  com- 
fortably rest  in  it,  and  the  salt  be  easily  renewed ;  and 
there  are  many  modifications  of  form,  and  even  color, 
that  might  be  introduced  without  hindering  use  in  any 
way,  or  making  the  thing  seem  other  than  it  is.  And 
so  may  this  principle  be  carried  out  indefinitely ;  and 
I  cannot  see,  except  for  the  love  of  novelty  and  pre- 
tentious conceit,  why  any  thing  more  should  be  wanted. 
It  cannot  be  a  very  lasting  pleasure  to  shake  pepper 
out  of  an  owl's  head,  or  help  yourself  to  butter  out  of 
a  beehive ;  but  it  is  a  lasting  pleasure  to  have  a  thor- 
oughly useful  and  soundly  constructed  thing  made  out 
of  a  right  and  good  material,  appearing  in  its  appro- 
priate place,  and  declaring  and  fulfilling  its  proper  use 
and  office.  Without  directly  referring  to  these  three 
conditions  at  every  moment,  I  would  be  understood  as 
keeping  them  in  mind  as  I  go  on. 

The  chief  materials  of  which  our  household  goods 
are  made  —  wood,  stone,  metals,  glass,  china  —  differ 
widely  in  qualities  of  texture  and  substance ;  each 
requiring  a  different  process  of  manufacture,  different 
handling,  different  tools.  So  the  kind  and  degree 
of  ornament,  as  well  as  of  use,  must  be  different  in 
each,  —  differently  conceived  of,  differently  applied, 
and  with  largely  different  results  ;  and  we  are  not  to 
expect  from  paper  the  qualities  and  appearance  of 
leather,  or  from  leather  those  of  wood,  or  from  wood 
those  of  stone.  Each,  having  its  separate  and  appro- 
priate use  and  place,  is  capable  of  receiving  a  separate 


48  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  appropriate  beauty.     Just  a  few  words  on  each  in 
its  turn. 

The  principal  articles  of  furniture  in  our  rooms  — 
tables,  sideboards,  pianos,  wardrobes,  etc.  —  are  usually 
made  of  some  wood,  though  solid  and  durable  enough 
for  the  purpose,  yet  considered  to  be  in  itself  of  insuf- 
ficient beauty :  so  it  is  overlaid  with  thin  slices  of  a 
more  valuable  and  beautiful  wood,  so  that  every  part 
of  the  surface  that  is  visible  is  covered  with  it,  and  it 
looks  as  if  it  were  made  throughout  of  rosewood,  wal- 
nut, or  mahogany,  as  the  case  may  be.  I  think  this 
process  of  veneering  must  be  allowed  as  an  exception 
to  our  first  requirement,  that  a  thing  should  seem  to 
be  made  of  that  material  of  which  it  really  is  made. 
The  wood  is  laid  on  by  a  recognized  process,  which 
deceives  nobody ;  it  economizes  valuable  material,  and 
the  result  is  agreeable  to  the  eye.  The  thick  coat  of 
French  polish,  however,  which  is  finally  laid  on  it,  is 
to  be  condemned ;  its  unnatural  lustre  interferes  with 
the  color  and  real  beauty  of  the  wood,  which,  though 
it  should  be  smooth  and  finished,  need  not  be  so  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  resemble  a  looking-glass.  Gild- 
ing, again,  as  applied  to  the  frames  of  pictures  and 
mirrors,  is  a  method  of  decorating  wood  surfaces  that 
may  be  allowed  :  its  value  in  decorative  effect  is  good, 
if  not  too  lavishly  used ;  and  it  must  form  another 
exception  to  the  rule,  as  no  one  is  expected  to  be 
deceived  into  thinking  that  all  that  is  gilded  must  be 
gold.  But  with  wooden  chimney-pieces,  pillars,  slabs, 
painted  to  imitate  marble,  the  case  is  very  different. 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  49 

The  better  the  imitation,  the  greater  waste  of  the 
painter's  time  and  powers.  The  appearance  is  in- 
tended to  deceive,  but  a  touch  destroys  the  illusion ; 
one  sense  is  contradicted  by  another ;  and  some  other 
mode  of  painting,  not  imitative,  would  have  a  really 
better  effect  if  the  object  were  of  good  design  and 
delicate  workmanship.  And,  of  this  last,  wood  is 
especially  capable.  Delicate  panelling  and  wainscot- 
in  j,  turning  and  carving,  used  to  be  much  more  com- 
mon than  they  are  now ;  and  in  houses  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  there  was  much  to  interest,  where  now  all  is 
dull  enough  —  what  panelling  there  is  being  most  com- 
monly cut  into  lengths,  and  fastened  on  afterwards. 
The  same  with  the  decorative  carving  of  furniture, 
which,  instead  of  being  part  of  the  construction,  is 
made  separately,  chopped  into  portions,  and  glued  on  : 
no  wonder  that  it  is  so  often  clumsy  and  protuberant 
and  excessive.  So  many  heavy  and  clumsy  things  are 
made  of  wood,  that  we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  of 
what  light  and  delicate  work  it  is  capable  :  handles 
are  made  many  times  larger  than  is  necessary ;  legs  of 
tables  and  pianos,  more  thick  and  bulging ;  and  cur- 
tain-poles, when  they  are  meant  to  be  visible,  too 
large  and  ponderous,  —  fro:n  a  liking,  I  suppose,  for 
an  appearance  of  strength  and  massiveness,  often 
greatly  belied  by  the  •  actual  fact. 

The  graining  of  wood  to  imitate  another  different 
kind  of  wood  has  something  to  be  said  for  it,  especially 
when  the  graining  imitates  some  kind  of  wood  likely 
to  have  been  used ;  as  it  wears  well,  and  looks  clean  a 


50  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

long  time  :  still  the  plain  deal,  or  whatever  it  may  be, 
had  much  better  be  stained  a  useful  tint,  and  polished 
but  not  too  highly.  I  have  seen  front  doors  painted 
to  look  like  bronze,  —  not  a  likely  material  for  a  front 
door :  this,  too,  seems  a  great  waste  of  human  time 
and  ingenuity,  without  a  proportionate  amount  of  satis- 
faction. Ebonized  wood,  as  it  is  called,  has  been  very 
fashionable  lately ;  but,  as  we  usually  see  it,  not  often 
good,  —  the  polish  being  too  high,  and  the  incised 
gilded  lines  on  it  being  so  soon  dimmed  and  filled 
with  dust.  Wood  stained  black  is  appropriate  for  the 
framework  of  chairs  with  slender  rails  and  legs,  or 
with  thicker  ones  turned ;  but  it  is  dull  and  blank  in  a 
large  surface.  I  can  only  thus  hint  at  some  of  the 
uses  to  which  wood  is  applied  in  our  houses,  and  how 
it  is  fashioned  and  treated ;  but  in  all  cases  it  is  good 
to  remember  that  unnecessarily  large  and  heavy  con- 
struction, high  polish,  coarse  carving,  imitative  paint- 
ing, should  be  avoided  :  so  will  use  and  convenience 
be  furthered  rather  than  hindered,  and  grace  and 
beauty  be  helped  and  promoted  as  well. 

The  one  indispensable  stone  in  every  room  of  the 
house  —  the  hearthstone  —  is,  in  most  old-fashioned 
houses,  of  marble,  easily  kept  clean  by  washing ;  when 
it 'came  to  be  made  of  inferior  stone,  whitening  was 
used  £t  the  edge,  and  black-lead  under  and  about  the 
grate.  In  fireplaces  of  this  kind,  instead  of  these  I 
would  recommend  reddening,  which  has  an  excellent 
effect  with  brass  fender  and  fire-irons ;  and  the  red 
ochre  for  the  purpose  can  be  got  everywhere,  and  afK 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  5 1 

plied  just  as  easily  as  whitening  or  black-lead.  As  all 
the  interest  and  home  feelings  of  a  house  collect  about 
the  fireside,  in  our  climate,  in  which  winter  holds  us 
half  the  year,  —  a  fire  being,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  a 
living  thing  in  a  dead  room,"  —  it  will  be  worth  while 
to  consider  it  in  other  respects  carefully.  The  earlier 
household  fires  were  made  on  an  open  hearth  of  logs 
of  wood  piled  on  iron  supports  called  dogs,  which,  at 
their  ends  fronting  the  room,  were  ornamented  with 
figures  and  devices  of  wrought  metal.  As  coal  became 
more  commonly  used,  —  being  found  capable  of  con- 
taining greater  heat  in  a  smaller  compass,  —  a  sort  of 
basket  grate  was  made  to  contain  it,  of  slender  upright 
bars  crossed  by  horizontal  ones.  By  degrees  the  thing 
was  made  thicker  and  more  clumsy,  and,  being  found 
incapable  of  easy  removal,  was  firmly  fixed  in  its  place  : 
the  upright  bars  were  discontinued,  but  the  knobs  fin- 
ishing them  at  the  top  remained,  and  still  remain, 
having  grown  bigger  and  bigger,  absorbing  heat,  inter- 
fering with  the  arrangement  of  the  fire,  a  perfect 
monument  of  stupidity  and  superfluousness.  In  most 
cases  the  open  fireplace  is  a  great  black  hole  in  our 
rooms,  only  tolerable  when  there  is  a  fire  burning  in  it ; 
and  any  thing  we  can  do  to  moderate  the  blackness 
is  a  benefit,  such  as  to  redden  the  hearth  in  the  way  I 
have  mentioned,  or,  still  better,  to  pave  the  hearth  with 
red  tiles,  —  not  tiles  with  patterns  on  them,  as  the 
ashes  obscure  and  spoil  the  effect  of  the  design.  la 
summer  great  and  wonderful  efforts  are  in  these  days 
made  to  do  away  with  that  blackness.  I  cannot  thijok 


52  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

painted  and  gilded  paper,  or  lace  bibs  and  aprons,  or  a 
heap  of  shavings  garlanded  with  artificial  flowers,  or 
even  curtains  or  a  Japanese  umbrella,  really  comfort- 
able and  appropriate.  The  fireplace  itself  is  the  root 
of  the  difficulty,  which  will  last  until  there  is  a  general 
reform.  A  wide  fireplace  lined  with  patterned  and 
colored  tiles ;  the  hearth  of  plain  ones,  red  or  brown 
or  green ;  and  the  grate  itself  a  separate  and  detached 
object,  capable  of  being  removed,  and  its  place  in  the 
summer  filled  with  plants,  like  the  hearth  in  "The 
Deserted  Village,"  — 

"With  aspen  boughs,  and  flowers,  and  fennel,  gay,"  — 

this  would  be  a  great  improvement.  I  have  before 
touched  upon  the  uselessness,  in  every  way,  of  the 
long-admired  bright  steel  fire-irons;  but  now  it  is 
common  to  find  these  things  made  of  more  satisfactory 
material  and  shape,  and  I  think  there  is  little  doubt 
that  brass  is  the  most  beautiful  and  convenient  metal 
for  them,  and  for  the  fender  and  the  coal-box  as  well ; 
it  is  easily  kept  bright,  and  has  a  cheerful  effect : 
always  supposing  these  things  to  be  not  too  large  and 
heavy,  and  to  have  as  much  elegant  shape  and  delicate 
detail  as  are  consistent  with  their  use  and  material. 

And  so  we  come  to  a  short  consideration  of  metals. 
Brass  candlesticks,  inkstands,  chandeliers,  and  sconces 
are  now  to  be  had  of  simple  and  elegant  shapes,  many 
being  reproductions  of  some  of  the  old  good  work  : 
and  if,  in  the  same  room  with  these,  the  door-plates 
and  handles  and  bell-pulls  are  of  wrought  brass-work 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  53 

too,  the  general  effect  is  so  much  the  better,  as  the 
eye  is  pleased  with  the  repetition  of  the  brightness  in 
various  forms. 

There  has  been  lately  a  taste  for  old-fashioned  plate, 
so  that  the  specimens  of  it  we  still  possess  have  now  a 
chance  of  being  taken  care  of;  instead,  as  I  can  re- 
member, of  being  sold  merely  for  their  value  in  weight 
or  exchanged  for  modern  and  worse,  only  to  be  melted 
down  and  re-made  into  new  and  hideous  shapes.  The 
beauty  of  antique  household  plate  consisted  in  no 
undue  massiveness  of  appearance  and  highly  polished 
and  chased  surfaces,  frosted  and  incrusted  with  orna- 
ment, only  betokening  a  restless  desire  of  the  silver- 
smith to  show  off  his  dexterity,  and  extort  admiration 
and  surprise  at  any  cost.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  — 
the  time  of  Benvenuto  Cellini,  —  the  worker  in  silver 
and  gold  was  an  artist :  goldsmith's  work  was  on  a 
level  with  statuary,  and  as  such  is  now  a  lost  art. 

Within  the  present  century,  the  ordinary  silver  table 
utensils  were  of  more  slender  and  elegant  make  than 
now,  and  more  delicately  and  appropriately  chased. 
The  spoons,  the  salt-cellars,  the  rosewater-dishes,  of 
thin  repousse  work,  were  of  varied  and  elegant  shapes  ; 
so  that  once  to  have  seen  and  admired  these  things, 
gives  a  distaste  for  the  heavy  spoons  and  forks  loaded 
with  the  meaningless  bulgings  of  the  Queen's  pattern, 
the  teapots  with  coarse  chasing,  the  candelabra  and 
£pergnes,  all  ferns  and  palm-trees,  and  camels,  and 
figures  in  the  style  of  advertisements  of  the  insurance 
offices.  Metal-work  is  indeed  a  study  and  an  interest 


54  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

in  itself  alone.  There  must  be  a  right  form  and  a 
right  ornament  for  every  piece  of  railing,  every  door- 
knocker, every  fire-grate,  every  piece  of  table-service 
and  jewellery,  —  of  right  form  when  it  fulfils  and  sug- 
gests use,  right  ornament  when  the  pleasure  there  has 
been  in  making  it  is  communicated  to  the  user  and 
purchaser. 

As  the  beauty  of  glass  consists  in  its  transparency 
and  lightness,  and  its  capability  of  being  twisted  or 
blown  or  moulded  into  a  multitude  of  delicate  forms, 
it  early  occurred  to  the  manufacturing  mind,  that  if 
made  thick  and  solid,  and  cut  into  facets,  it  would 
resemble  crystal ;  and  thus  it  has  come  to  be  a  fixed 
idea,  that  hard  glitter  is  its  most  valuable  quality,  and 
so  it  is  made  inches  thick,  and  pounds  heavy,  to  en- 
hance its  brilliancy.  And,  being  one  of  the  most  fra- 
gile of  substances,  it  must  be  engraved  with  people's 
crests  and  monograms,  as  if  it  were  intended  to  carry 
down  the  name  of  the  family  for  generations  to  come  ! 
Being  of  its  nature  transparent,  it  must  be  rendered 
opaque  of  set  intention  by  coloring  matter,  and  then 
painted  and  gilded  !  Since,  at  its  strongest,  glass  can 
never  be  any  thing  but  fragile,  at  least  let  it  keep  the 
beauty  belonging  to  fragility ;  since  it  is  naturally 
transparent,  let  the  light  be  seen  streaming  through 
it,  sometimes  delicately  tinted,  sometimes  iridescent ; 
and,  instead  of  being  cut,  let  it  be  blown  and  twisted 
into  the  thousand  delicate  shapes  to  which  it  easily 
lends  itself,  and  of  which,  in  the  Venetian  glass  of  a 
bygone  day,  and  in  its  present  revival,  there  are  such 
delightful  examples. 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  55 

In  the  word  "  pottery  "  is  included  every  species  of 
earthenware,  from  the  rudest  unglazed  cup  of  burnt 
or  baked  clay,  such  as  was  made  a  thousand  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  to  the  finest  Oriental  and  Sevres 
of  to-day. 

The  first  thing  tc  be  desired  in  pottery  is  beauty  of 
form,  combined  with  a  perfect  adaptation  to  use. 
Then,  whatever  adornment  of  pattern  and  color  be 
added,  it  must  in  no  way  interfere  with  the  effect  of 
that  form,  or  divert  the  attention  from  it.  The  deco- 
ration, the  pattern  upon  it,  should  bey&z/.-  any  appear- 
ance of  projection,  where  none  exists  in  reality,  is 
wrong.  Landscapes  and  groups  of  flowers  in  shading 
and  perspective  are  entirely  out  of  place  in  pottery, 
however  well  the  painting  may  be  executed.  For 
household  use,  pottery  must  generally  be  glazed ;  it 
may  be  colored  in  one  agreeable  tint  throughout,  and, 
if  painted,  the  pattern  should  be  laid  on  it  flatly  and 
symmetrically,  and  without  shadow.  The  search  for 
novelty  has  produced  in  our  day  many  strange  things 
in  the  potter's  art.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  see  toilet- 
ware fashioned  and  colored  to  imitate  rustic  wood- 
work; flower-vases  in  the  shape  of  a  hand  coming 
apparently  straight  up  out  of  the  table,  and  holding  a 
cup ;  shapes  of  boats,  pails,  baskets,  and  hosts  of  other 
incongruities,  in  which  the  form  is  generally  fatal  to 
the  comfort  of  the  flowers  in  some  way.  I  found  the 
other  day  a  striking  instance  of  incongruity  of  idea, 
and  the  struggle  to  produce  a  novelty,  quite  regardless 
of  any  sort  of  appropriateness  or  fitness,  in  the  de- 


56  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

scription,  in  an  American  magazine,  of  a  toilet  water- 
jug.  I  will  read  the  extract :  "  More  original,  and 
decidedly  American  in  suggestion  and  design,  is  a  toi- 
let called  the  '  Bullion,'  in  a  fine  satiny-glazed  semi- 
china.  The  wide-mouthed  ewer,  with  neck  and  handle 
powdered  in  gold,  seems  to  issue  from  a  bag,  shirred 
and  tied  up  with  a  carelessly  knotted  string;  the 
leather-color  of  the  bag  and  the  scattered  gold  favor 
the  conceit  (!)  of  the  pitcher  issuing 'from  a  bag  of 
the  precious  metal."  I  am  glad  to  be  assured  that 
this  is  decidedly  American ;  and  really,  bad  as  Eng- 
lish ideas  sometimes  are,  I  think  this  is  a  length  to 
which  we  could  scarcely  go. 

The  taste  for  blue-and-white  china,  so  great  a  fea- 
ture in  modern  decoration,  has  much  to  excuse  it 
within  due  limits.  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  the 
fitness  of  hanging  detached  plates  —  however  unique 
and  valuable  —  on  walls,  as  if  they  were  pictures ;  but 
on  a  shelf  or  ledge  where  plates  can  be  arranged  in 
a  row,  the  cool  clean  color  of  the  older  Oriental,  or 
even  delf,  is  very  refreshing  and  pleasant  to  the  eye. 
Without  pretending  to  connoisseurship  in  marks,  and 
periods,  and  processes,  we  may  easily  learn  to  distin- 
guish between  poor  imitations,  and  original  and  good 
objects,  in  pottery;  between  Chinese  and  Japanese, 
between  early  and  late  work  in  both,  and  among  the 
most  marked  English  kinds,  Wedgwood,  Worcester, 
Chelsea,  Derby,  and  so  on,  so  as  to  choose  the  most 
decorative.  As  to  the  shapes  of  the  various  manufac- 
tures, if  they  are  good,  they  will  certainly  tell  you  at  a 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  $? 

glance  for  what  purpose  they  were  originally  intend- 
ed, and  they  may  still  fulfil  that  purpose ;  but  if  we 
prefer  not  to  run  the  risk  of  losing  them  by  breakage, 
and  to  keep  them  within  sight,  using  them  merely  for 
the  pleasure  of  the  eye,  it  is  perfectly  reasonable  to 
range  them  on  shelves,  or  in  open  cupboards,  in  our 
own  sitting-rooms.  I  saw  a  house  lately  where  the 
dining-room  was  lined  with  dressers,  on  which  all  the 
china  and  glass  of  the  household  was  arranged.  This 
was,  I  suppose,  by  way  of  returning  to  the  simplicity 
of  earlier  times ;  but  it  seemed  rather  far-fetched  and 
inconvenient.  One  would  choose  only  the  rarest,  and 
least  used,  and  most  beautiful  of  the  family  posses- 
sions of  this  kind,  for  constant  exhibition  in  the  dining- 
room,  unless  we  introduce  also  the  pots  and  pans,  and 
kitchen-ware  generally,  because  of  our  inability  to  make 
better  things. 

Often,  in  the  present  enthusiasm  for  the  things  and 
manners  of  old  times,  people  are  apt  to  be  carried 
away,  and,  out  of  disgust  at  the  falseness  and  arti- 
ficiality of  later  civilization,  forget  the  good  things  it 
has  brought  as  well.  At  any  rate,  we  cannot  return  in 
any  genuine  sense  to  primitive  ways,  nor  should  we 
try  to  do  so ;  only,  by  discovering  the  mistakes  over- 
sophistication  and  refinement  have  led  us  into  by  com- 
parison with  the  simpler  old  fashion,  we  may  correct 
them,  —  not  losing  what  we  have  gained,  but  merely 
putting  it  to  a  better  use.  All  manufactures  and  pro- 
cesses have  reached  in  these  days  a  mechanical  per- 
fection hitherto  undreamed  of;  and,  in  our  pride  in 


58  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

this  perfection,  qualities  of  appropriateness,  delicacy, 
beauty,  are  often  lost  sight  of. 

The  texture  of  a  carpet  is  often  exquisite  in  soft- 
ness, thickness,  evenness,  while  the  pattern  on  it  is 
detestable  in  its  gaudiness  and  ugliness.  A  piece  of 
metal-work  is  often  faultless  in  finish  and  polish,  but 
wrong  as  to  every  consideration  of  taste  and  of  use. 
I  need  not  multiply  instances ;  but  it  seems  as  if  this 
modern  characteristic  of  pride  in  mechanical  perfec- 
tion, overcoming  original  pleasure  in  beauty,  is  to  be 
found  in  almost  every  thing ;  so  that,  even  in  music,  a 
singer's  power  of  faultlessly  executing  bravura  passages 
and  shakes,  of  dwelling  on  a  note  for  an  unprece- 
dented and  intolerable  length  of  time,  and,  in  the 
player  of  any  instrument,  the  power  of  executing  the 
sort  of  effect  least  properly  belonging  to  that  instru- 
ment, and  the  most  impossible,  —  these  things  are  more 
admired  than  the  uttering,  with  sympathetic  expres- 
sion, of  a  simple  melody,  only  intended  to  reach  the 
heart,  and  not  to  excite  surprise  and  astonishment  at 
all. 

One  day,  after  I  had  been  making  some  such  re- 
marks as  these,  an  old  lady  said  to  me,  "  I  have  been 
furnishing  my  house  for  the  last  thirty  years  :  you  do 
not  expect  me  to  begin  all  over  again."  I  assured  her 
indeed  that  I  did  not.  I  think  the  fact  of  her  having 
kept  alive  her  interest  in  it  for  so  long  proved  that 
there  must  have  been  a  great  deal  in  it,  both  beautiful 
and  useful.  I  find  it  is  generally  thought  that  such 
ideas  as  these  of  mine  are  meant  to  bring  about  whole- 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  59 

sale  destruction  of  household  goods,  and  immediate 
purchase  of  new  ones  of  a  different  kind.  Nothing 
would  be  farther  from  my  wishes.  The  greatest  sacri- 
fice I  would  desire  is  the  carrying-out  of  the  axiom, 
"  Keep  nothing  in  your  house  but  what  you  know  to 
be  useful,  or  believe  to  be  beautiful."  This  done,  and 
then  in  every  future  purchase  the  principles  exercised 
that  I  have  suggested,  I  should  feel  that  much  will 
have  been  gained,  —  much  simplicity,  much  comfort, 
much  beauty.  And  there  is  a  way  of  arranging  a 
house  and  its  furniture,  with  regard  to  natural  function 
and  habit  and  convenience,  so  that  it  produces  a  cer- 
tain charm  and  harmony  of  effect,  and  the  comfort 
and  hospitality  of  a  home.  Houses  have  their  char- 
acter, their  physiognomy,  as  well  as  people  ;  it  is  by 
studying  their  peculiarities,  suppressing  this  or  that 
defect,  and  bringing  out  this  or  that  good  quality,  that 
we  can  inhabit  and  enjoy  them  to  the  best  advantage. 
In  this  way  can  they  be  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
divine  order  of  nature,  instead  of  being,  as  they  often 
are,  discordant  with  her  simplicity  and  economy. 

To  any  one  who  has  begun  to  feel  the  wish,  nay 
the  necessity,  for  some  change,  some  relief  from  the 
dead  level  of  household  ugliness  that  has  prevailed 
for  so  long,  the  first  discouragement,  the  first  difficulty 
to  be  encountered,  lies  in  the  house  itself.  It  is  given 
to  comparatively  few  to  have  the  advantage  of  living 
either  in  beautiful  old  houses,  or  in  new  ones  planned 
and  built  after  the  intelligent,  thoughtful  designs  of 
good  modern  architects.  The  house  we  most  of  us 


6O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

have  to  inhabit  is  a  more  or  less  ill  or  well  constructed 
specimen  of  the  ordinary  builder's  house,  intended  to 
provide  its  in-d\vellers  with  a  certain  amount  of  shelter, 
comfort,  convenience ;  as  little  of  these  as  is  decently 
necessary;  and  as  much  of  pretension,  ostentation, 
insecure  workmanship,  and  inadequate  material,  as 
can  be  got  into  the  contract.  So  our  efforts  to  make 
these  houses  more  beautiful  and  inhabitable  are  hin- 
dered at  every  turn  by  some  radical  defect,  and  our 
utmost  success  results  from  a  constant  struggle  merely 
to  make  the  best  of  it.  We  begin  to  want  to  make 
our  floors  more  comely,  clean,  and  convenient ;  but  the 
planks  are  so  uneven,  so  badly  joined,  that  they-  do  not 
admit  of  the  staining  and  polishing  we  would  desire, 
and  the  only  means  of  dealing  with  them  is  to  cover 
them  up  to  the  walls  with  matting  or  carpet,  collecting 
daily  accumulations  of  dust,  and  leading  to  the  cease- 
less labor  of  the  housemaid.  Then  the  walls  are  only 
too  likely  to  be  dreary  wastes  of  height  and  breadth,  ill 
proportioned  and  difficult  to  deal  with  ;  the  windows 
too  large,  too  low,  and  ill-placed,  so  that  they  look, 
from  both  inside  and  outside,  like  large  holes  made 
only  to  be  filled  up  again  in  some  way,  veiled  in  large 
muslin  curtains,  and  within  these  again  larger  and 
heavier  ones,  wire  or  wicker  blinds  also  perhaps,  and 
linen  or  else  Venetian  ones  as  well,  and  tables  with 
plants.  By  all  these  things  we  express  our  need  of 
mitigating  the  glare  of  light  which  would,  without 
them,  seem  to  make  the  rooms  uninhabitable. 

Then  there  are  the  ugly  and  meaningless  cornices 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  6 1 

and  centre-pieces  of  the  ceiling,  looking  like  the  orna- 
ments of  a  wedding-cake ;  the  clumsily  formed  and 
obtrusive  marble  mantlepieces,  lending  a  gloom  as  of 
tombstones  to  the  room ;  and  the  ill-contrived  and 
extravagant  fire-grate.  All  this  is  very  discouraging, 
and  is  apt  to  lead  to  improvements  that  are  after  all 
merely  make-shifts.  Still,  this  is  very  often  all  we  can 
do,  —  people  with  moderate  means,  in  these  days. 
There  is  a  lecture  by  Mr.  William  Morris,  called 
"  Making  the  Best  of  it,"  {which  should  afford  much 
instruction,  much  help,  and  some  encouragement,  to 
those  of  us  who  have  the  matter  really  at  heart ;  but  I 
fear  we  are  still  so  much  in  the  minority  that  the  time 
for  a  general  reform  is  still  far  off,  and  it  is  difficult 
to  feel  very  sanguine  about  it. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  one  reason  of  the  neglect 
of  the  principles  of  Art  in  modern  days  is  the  general 
admiration  and  devotion  to  Science.  "Men  run  to 
and  fro,  and  knowledge  is  increased."  I  know  that 
we  owe  a  great  debt  to  Science ;  but  there  is  one  good 
office  we  have  a  right  to  expect  from  her,  and  to  which 
she  has  only  latterly  apparently  turned  her  attention, 
and  that  office  is  the  teaching  us  how  to  get  rid  of 
our  smoke.  Smoke  is  bad  enough  in  towns  where 
the  chimneys  of  houses  used  for  living  only,  give  forth 
their  store  of  blacks ;  but  in  manufacturing  towns, 
and  especially,  as  it  seems  to  me,  those  of  the  North, 
the  plague  is  intolerable,  if  one  comes  to  think  of  it. 
These  towns  are  mostly  built  in  beautiful  situations,  in 
the  midst  of  fine  natural  features ;  but  the  face  of  the 


62  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

country  is  blackened  as  by  some  great  conflagration. 
The  smoke,  and  gases,  and  noisome  vapors,  destroy 
every  green  thing,  like  the  locusts  in  King  Pharaoh's 
time ;  and  no  one  seems  to  care.  I  see  fine  houses 
filled  with  costly  and  delicate  hangings  and  fittings, 
and  of  course  they  must  suffer.  But  the  great  thing 
of  all  to  point  out  is,  that  there  can  be  no  real  care 
for  Nature  or  love  of  Art  where  this  plague  of  smoke 
prevails.  I  am  told  that  the  Smoke  Act  is  in  many 
places  a  dead  letter;  so  it  is  impossible  not  to  ask 
how  the  rich  men  of  these  places  can  really  care  for 
beautiful  pictures,  while  they  allow  their  chimneys  to 
blot  out  and  spoil  the  natural  beauty  of  the  hills  and 
vales  and  gardens  around  them.  No  doubt  there  are 
other  and  perhaps  more  important  things  to  attend 
to ;  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel,  that,  as  regards  the 
general  love  of  beauty  and  care  for  Art,  the  abolition 
of  smoke  is  to  be  earnestly  desired  and  promoted,  as 
far  as  the  influence  of  each  one  of  us  extends. 

These  remarks  of  mine  on  the  subject  of  house- 
decoration  would  be  incomplete  at  the  present  moment 
were  I  to  say  nothing  about  the  phase  of  taste,  mock- 
ingly called  aesthetic,  through  which  we  are  passing ; 
not  the  least  curious  of  the  features  belonging  to  it 
being  that  the  satirical  comments  it  has  called  forth, 
and  the  numerous  travesties  that  have  been  founded 
on  it,  have  acquired  far  larger  proportions  and  obtained 
much  more  notoriety  than  the  reality  they  profess  to 
ridicule.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  those  in  whom 
the  love  and  pursuit  of  Art  is  enlightened  and  genuine 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM,  63 

have  nothing  to  fear  from  this  ridicule.  All  that  is 
unreal,  affected,  morbid,  professedly  eccentric,  and 
discordant  with  nature,  in  the  present  revival  of  taste, 
is  sure  to  disappear  in  time,  and  no  harm  if  it  be 
driven  away  by  satire  and  derision ;  but  the  sounder 
part  that  is  founded  on  true  principles  and  just  reasons 
will  certainly  last,  and  serve  as  a  good  foundation  for  a 
wider  and  better  diffused  kuowledge  of  Art  than  has 
yet  been  seen  in  our  day.  Those  of  us  who  have 
learned  in  house-decoration  and  dress  to  find  how 
much  more  becoming  and  agreeable  delicate  and  soft 
coloring  is  than  glaring  metallic  dyes  ;  how  much  more 
delightful  and  serviceable  are  softly  falling  and  cling- 
ing silks  and  stuffs  than  stiff  and  rustling  ones ;  and 
how  much  better  and  more  elegant  are  simplicity  and 
delicacy  in  form  than  massiveness  and  cumbrousness, — 
those,  I  say,  who  have  learned  all  this,  are  never  likely 
to  return  to  mauve  and  magenta,  to  crinolines,  to  yards 
of  gilt  cornices,  and  acres  of  costly  looking-glass. 

Many  people  in  these  days,  having  their  natural 
sense  of  beauty  revived  by  the  sight  and  the  posses- 
sion of  the  good  things  that  are  now  as  easily  to  be 
had  as  ugly  things,  buy  them  at  first  because  they  are 
the  fashion,  and  then  dimly  begin  to  be  aware  that 
some  principles,  some  reasons,  must  exist  by  which 
the  beauty  of  some  things  and  the  ugliness  of  others 
can  be  proved,  demonstrated,  accounted  for ;  and  in 
some  measure  to  do  this,  has  been  my  aim.  In  spite 
of  all  that  is  written  and  spoken  in  these  days  about 
taste  and  art,  there  is  very  little  authoritative  teaching 


64  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

on  the  subject ;  and  this  must  be  ray  apology  for  so 
constantly  quoting  from  Mr.  Morris  and  Mr.  Ruskin. 
We  indeed  owe  every  thing  we  learn  and  know  about 
art  to  them ;  the  one  being  by  original  genius  and 
long  practical  experience,  the  other  by  splendid  gifts 
of  imagination  and  expression  joined  to  a  life-long 
study,  qualified  to  tell  us  what  the  arts  really  are,  and 
how  we  ought  to  think  and  feel  about  them.  The 
opinions  and  views  of  each  on  the  points  we  have 
been  considering  are,  however,  not  very  accessible. 
Until  the  other  day,  of  Mr.  Morris's  few  lectures  only 
one  has  been  printed  under  his  superintendence 
(though  a  book  of  them  is  shortly  to  be  published)  ; 
and  Mr.  Ruskin's  writings  can  never  appeal  to  the 
world  at  large,  their  real  worth  and  excellence  being, 
at  least  for  the  majority  of  readers,  obscured  by  much 
that  is  visionary  and  unpractical.  In  the  works  of 
both,  many  ideas  and  principles  are  dwelt  upon  and 
enforced  that  I  can  only  hint  at  now;  but,  in  thus 
making  quotations  from  the  writings  of  these  teachers, 
I  seem  to  be  helping  to  clear  up  their  meaning,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  enforce  my  own. 

For  details,  the  little  books  of  the  "  Art  at  Home  " 
series  —  and  especially  one  by  Mrs.  Orrinsmith,  "  The 
Drawing-room  "  —  have  been  found  really  suggestive 
and  useful ;  especially  so,  as  being  the  results  of  actual 
practice  and  experience.  And  only  practice  and  ex- 
perience can  thoroughly  teach  us  what  we  want  to 
know  hi  such  matters.  In  these  rapid,  and,  I  fear, 
very  disjointed  remarks,  though  I  may  have  chanced 


DECORATIVE  ART — FORM.  65 

on  little  or  nothing  very  new  or  suggestive,  still  I  have 
a  belief  that  it  is  not  quite  useless  to  reiterate  the 
desire  for  simplicity  and  sincerity,  and,  by  means  of 
these,  beauty,  in  our  houses,  and  therefore  in  the  lives 
that  we  spend  in  them ;  and  I  would  wish  to  end 
for  to-day  with  these  words  of  Mr.  Morris's,  for  I 
think  there  is  hope  and  encouragement  in  them  :  "  We 
who  think,  and  can  enjoy  the  feast  that  Nature  has 
spread  for  us,  is  it  not  both  our  right  and  our  duty  to 
rebel  against  that  slavery  of  the  waste  of  life's  joys, 
which  people,  thoughtless  and  joyless  by  no  fault  of 
their  own,  have  wrapped  the  world  in?  From  our 
own  selves  we  can  tell  that  there  is  hope  of  victory  in 
our  rebellion,  since  we  have  Art  enough  in  our  lives, 
not  to  content  us,  but  to  make  us  long  for  more ;  and 
that  longing  drives  us  into  trying  to  spread  Art  and  the 
longing  for  Art.  And  as  it  is  with  us,  so  it  will  be  with 
those  that  we  win  over :  little  by  little,  we  may  well 
hope,  will  do  its  work,  till  at  last  a  great  many  men 
will  have  enough  of  Art  to  see  how  little  they  have, 
and  how  much  they  might  better  their  lives  if  every 
man  had  his  due  share  of  Art,  that  is,  just  so  much  as 
he  could  use  if  a  fair  chance  were  given  him." 


III.  — DECORATIVE  ART  — COLOR,  DRESS, 
AND  NEEDLEWORK. 

THE  great  and  peculiar  difficulties  belonging  to  this 
part  of  my  subject  make  me  feel  a  little  diffident  in 
approaching  it.  Seeing  that  color  is  of  so  fluctuating, 
so  variable,  so  indefinite  a  nature,  the  words  I  use  in 
speaking  of  it  must  needs  partake  of  the  same  nature, 
and  will  be  apt  to  be  rather  vague  and  meaningless, 
unless  they  appeal  to  a  vivid  natural  perception.  No 
one  of  our  faculties  is  capable  of  greater  or  more  varied 
pleasure  than  the  color-sense  :  we  find  that  pleasure  in 
all  the  most  beautiful  things  of  Nature, —  the  sky, 
the  sea,  the  fields,  the  woods,  the  flowers,  the  birds,  the 
insects ;  and  in  the  things  of  Art,  color  is  the  most 
valuable  quality  in  paintings ;  and  in  decoration,  while 
harmonious  coloring  may  in  some  degree  atone  for 
faulty  design,  a  good  design  may  be  spoilt  by  dis- 
cordant coloring. 

66 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,   ETC.          6? 

You  will  see  what  I  mean  by  the  difficulties  of  the 
subject,  when  I  remind  you  that  no  two  people  see 
color  alike  —  witness  the  eternal  disputes  about  match- 
ing; that  a  color  may  seem  one  thing  when  placed 
by  itself,  and  be  quite  different  beside  other  colors ; 
that  colors  alter  with  the  ever-shifting  quality  of  the 
atmosphere  ;  that  sunlight,  moonlight,  candle  -  light, 
lamp-light,  gas-light,  electric-light,  with  their  thou- 
sand degrees  of  purity  and  intensity,  make  colors  seen 
by  them  partake  of  their  variations ;  that,  when  two 
people  differ  about  the  proper  name  or  nature  of  a 
color,  neither  can  be  proved  to  be  wrong ;  that  most 
people,  except  a  very  few  with  a  highly  cultivated  nat- 
ural gift,  are  in  some  degree  color-blind  —  else  how  do 
we  account  for  the  common  differences  of  opinion  that 
are  always  arising,  one  person  calling  a  color  green 
while  another  calls  it  blue,  one  speaking  of  a  tint  as 
red  when  another  would  call  it  brown,  one  saying  a 
color  is  purple  which  another  would  call  dark  blue  ? 
Every  assertion  respecting  the  form  of  a  thing  is  ca- 
pable of  proof  or  disproof:  a  square  object  can  be 
mathematically  proved  to  be  square,  a  round  object  to 
be  round ;  if  one  person  says  a  line  is  crooked,  and 
another  says  it  is  straight,  one  must  be  -wrong,  and  can 
be  shown  to  be  so.  Not  so  with  color :  there  is  no 
absolute  standard,  no  fixed  means  of  judgment ;  all  is 
approximative  merely.  It  is  a  scientific  fact,  that  each 
color  produces  its  impression  on  the  eye  by  a  certain 
number  of  vibrations ;  but,  as  the  sensitiveness  to  these 
vibrations  varies  in  each  individual,  that  fact  does  not 


68  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

seem  to  help  us  much.  I  believe  there  are  tables 
for  the  examination  of  the  color-sense,  but  I  cannot 
suppose  the  knowledge  so  gained  would  be  readily 
available  in  ordinary  matters. 

It  is  not  easy  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  most 
people  are  insensible  to  delicate  variations  of  color. 
Think,  for  instance,  of  the  number  of  tints  that  "  red  " 
has  to  do  duty  for,  —  red  brick,  red  currants,  red  wine, 
red-breast,  red  hair,  red  faces,  red  coats,  a  red  Indian, 
red  sandstone,  red  ink,  red  ochre,  red  tape ;  that 
vermilion,  coral,  carnations,  cochineal,  carmine,  rubies, 
carbuncles,  garnets,  cherries,  poppies,  roses,  blushes, 
are  all  called  red.  We  say,  as  red  as  fire,  as  red 
as  blood,  as  red  as  a  turkey-cock.  "  The  whole  hill- 
side was  redder  than  a  fox,"  says  Tennyson.  These 
things  cannot  really  all  be  red,  and  the  fact  is  that 
none  of  them  are  absolutely  red ;  no  one's  hair  is 
really  red,  just  as  no  one's  eyes  are  absolutely  blue. 
Poverty  of  language,  and  coarseness  of  perception, 
must  have  originally  given  all  these  colors  but  one 
name. 

Again :  snow,  chalk,  ivory,  lilies,  orange- flowers, 
ermine,  swan's-down,  are  all  called  white ;  but  what 
differences  among  them  !  Their  differences  are  differ- 
ences of  texture  and  substance  ;  white  being  no  color, 
but  the  reflection  of  all ;  the  whiteness  of  snow  being 
caused  by  the  transmission  of  light  through  every  one 
of  the  infinite  transparent  particles  of  frozen  moisture, 
and  the  whiteness  of  chalk  by  the  reflection  of  light 
from  opaque  calcareous  particles,  —  the  result  of  each, 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,    ETC.         69 

and  its  effect  on  the  eye,  being  very  different.  So  with 
the  rest. 

I  suppose  that  young  children  notice  colors  as  soon 
as  they  notice  anything  that  is  not  good  to  eat.  Bright 
colors,  it  is  said,  as  a  rule  attract  children,  savages, 
dogs,  birds,  fishes,  and  insects.  We  have  often  been 
told  of  the  bower-birds,  who  ornament  their  nests  with 
different  colored  shells,  and  feathers,  and  the  petals  of 
flowers.  The  monkey,  who  plucks  the  splendid  trop- 
ical flower  only  to  tear  it  to  pieces,  and  reaches  out 
his  long  amis  to  clutch  at  the  bright  trailing  feathers 
of  an  unsuspecting  bird,  or  darts  after  a  brilliant  but- 
terfly, is  really  showing  an  aesthetic  appreciation  of 
color,  and  delight  in  it  for  its  own  sake.  Such  is  the 
liking  for  brilliancy  in  undeveloped  natures.  It  is  said 
that  red  most  strongly  attracts  the  uneducated  sense, 
and  that  it  needs  high  training  and  refinement  to  prop- 
erly enjoy  green.  How  far  this  is  true,  I  do  not  know ; 
but  it  seems  to  afford  some  sort  of  explanation  of  the 
present  taste  for  sage-green  in  dress  and  house  decora- 
tion ;  and  children,  in  whom  the  color-sense  is  un- 
developed, make  up  bunches  of  flowers  without  any 
leaves. 

It  certainly  takes  a  highly  cultivated  sense  to  appre- 
ciate the  more  delicate  hues  and  combinations.  But, 
before  we  proceed  to  these,  some  sort  of  classification 
of  the  ordinary  colors  must  be  made.  In  the  prismatic 
spectrum,  the  original  type  of  color,  or  the  rainbow, 
are  found  what  are  called  the  three  primary  colors,  — 
yellow,  red,  blue.  Between  these,  and  composed  of 


70  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

them,  are  the  three  secondary  colors, — orange,  made 
of  yellow  and  red ;  purple,  of  red  and  blue ;  green,  of 
blue  and  yellow.  Of  the  three  primary  colors,  in  vari- 
ous proportions,  every  hue  in  nature  is  composed,  — 
black,  in  which  all  colors  are  absorbed,  being  at  one 
end  of  the  scale  ;  and  white,  in  which  all  are  reflected, 
at  the  other  end  of  it.  Between  the  two,  the  varia- 
tions may  be  considered  infinite.  Some  scientific  cal- 
culation numbers  thirty  thousand,  but  I  could  easily 
believe  them  to  be  twice  as  many. 

Of  the  three  primaries,  blue  is  said  to  be  cold, 
yellow  warm,  and  red  neither.  By  this  is  meant  that 
an  admixture  of  blue  with  any  other  color  chills  and 
impoverishes  it.  A  bluish  tone  in  white  muslin  or  silk, 
or  other  white  stuff,  is  at  once  felt  to  be  poor  in  effect 
and  unbecoming :  we  know  what  is  thought  of  milk 
when  it  is  bluish.  A  blue-purple  and  a  purplish-red 
are  felt  to  be  colder  than  a  red-purple  and  a  brick-red. 
Blue,  in  its  highest  conditions,  is  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  colors ;  but  we  do  not  admire  it  for  its 
coldness,  but  for  its  purity.  Blue  is  the  only  color 
that  can  be  obtained  in  a  perfectly  pure  form, — ultra- 
marine, the  type  of  purity,  the  color  of  the  Virgin 
Mary. 

Now,  as  blue  is  called  cold,  so  is  yellow  said  to  be 
warm.  It  is  the  color  of  the  intensest  heat  we  can 
imagine,  —  white-heat ;  and,  as  blue  cools  and  chills, 
yellow  warms  any  color  with  which  it  is  mixed.  Ivory- 
white,  cream-white,  may  be  called  warm  white ;  and, 
of  course,  stuffs  of  such  tints  harmonize  much  better 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.         Jl 

with  the  warm  tones  of  hair  and  complexion  than  the 
snow  and  ice-cold  stuffs  of  a  few  years  ago.  Rich  ma- 
terials, lace  and  satin  and  silk,  look  all  the  richer  in 
the  warm  white,  and  poor  materials  look  less  poor. 
So  a  yellow  olive-green  is  more  soft  and  harmonious 
than  a  cold  blue-green ;  and  a  brick-red,  having  an 
admixture  of  yellow,  is  much  softer  and  more  becom- 
ing than  a  magenta-red,  which  has  some  proportion 
of  blue  in  it.  And  lastly,  red,  being  neutral,  is  in- 
capable of  imparting  either  cold  or  warm  effects  to 
a  color  to  which  it  is  added  in  any  proportion. 

The  most  striking  effect  of  the  modern  revival  of 
taste  is  the  change  of  public  opinion  it  has  effected 
with  regard  to  color,  —  a  change  from  coldness  and 
rawness  to  tone  and  warmth.  And  if  we  compare  the 
magenta,  the  mauve,  the  emerald-green,  of  a  dozen 
years  ago,  with  the  tints  that  are  now  the  mode,  we 
shall  see  that  the  wide  difference  between  their  effect 
on  the  color-sense  is  owing  to  the  adoption,  in  the 
latter,  of  warm  yellow  tones  instead  of  "cold  blue  ones, 
such  as  I  have  described  them. 

It  is  a  very  common  objection  to  what  are  called 
artistic  colors,  to  say  that  they  are  gloomy,  dismal,  and 
uabecoming.  If  this  is  true  of  any  particular  shade, 
the  fact  would  merely  go  to  prove  that  it  is  not  a  color 
properly  so  called,  but  some  muddy  confusion  of  tints, 
mistaken  for  an  artistic  color  for  want  of  a  right  appre- 
hension ;  and  it  owes  its  existence  to  a  foregone  con- 
clusion that  every  thing  heavy  and  dull  must  be  artistic. 
People  often  nowadays,  growing  tired  of  their  white- 


72  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and-gold  drawing-rooms,  in  which,  though  the  coloring 
might  be  cold,  it  was  at  least  clean,  let  loose  into  them 
the  house-painter,  who  daubs  all  the  wood-work  with 
his  muddy  and  foggy  tints,  dirty  browns,  or  purplish- 
chocolates,  and  cockroach  color,  under  the  impression 
he  is  doing  it  in  true  high  Art  style.  Indeed,  the  An- 
daman Islander,  with  his  red  ochre  and  white  chalk, 
has  a  much  better  and  more  refined  perception.  Sup- 
pose, however,  we  see  if  we  can  reach  a  higher  stand- 
ard than  that,  by  considering  first  the  effects  of  color 
in  Nature,  before  thinking  of  color  in  Art. 

The  defenders  of  bright  aniline  dyes  say,  that  since 
there  is  brilliant  color  in  Nature,  in  flowers,  in  the 
sunset,  in  birds,  in  tropical  foliage,  it  is  quite  natural 
and  right  to  prefer  them  (the  aniline  dyes),  and  to 
use  them  in  dress  and  in  household  decoration.  But 
let  us  see  in  what  the  brilliant  hues  of  Nature  consist ; 
and  then,  if  we  can  reproduce  them,  let  us  by  all 
means  do  so. 

In  the  first  pldce,  all  brilliant  combined  natural  effects 
of  color  are  transitory.  The  clouds  of  the  sunset  sky, 
crimson  and  purple,  and  green  and  gold,  are  gone  in 
half  an  hour,  and  would  be  a  sad  fatigue  to  the  eye 
if  they  lasted  all  day.  The  hues  of  the  rainbow  melt 
into  thin  air  as  we  gaze  :  they  have  no  time  to  dazzle 
us.  The  brilliant  tropical  flower  fades  in  a  day ;  the 
most  glowing  assemblage  of  autumn  tints  burns  itself 
out,  and  turns  to  dull  ashen  brown.  Suppose,  then,  we 
were  able  to  procure  stuffs  to  match  some  of  the  hues 
of  the  flowers,  the  rainbow,  the  sunset,  in  brilliancy ; 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          73 

suppose  we  hung  our  rooms  with  them  :  they  would  be 
always  appealing  to  the  color-sense  so  strongly  that 
they  would  be  as  fatiguing  as  a  perpetual  succession 
of  loud  screams  to  the  ear ;  and,  their  first  freshness 
worn  off,  they  would  soon  look  shabby,  and  with  a 
worse  sort  of  shabbiness  than  hues  of  less  pretension. 

And  not  only  are  these  natural  effects  of  color  evan- 
escent, but  they  are  variable  as  well ;  the  hues  of  the 
sunset  changing  every  moment,  our  senses  have  no 
time  to  pall,  to  be  dazed  by  too  much  unchanging 
loveliness.  The  glancing  hues  of  butterflies  are  made 
up  of  minutest,  delicate  plumes ;  and  the  almost  im- 
perceptible soft  tints  of  each,  when  they  are  blended 
together  on  the  wings,  give  a  tremulously  flashing 
brightness  that  no  evenly  laid  or  stippled  tint  of  ours 
could  produce. 

So  brilliancy  of  color  is  often  owing  to  texture,  — 
texture  by  us  not  to  be  imitated,  —  such  as  the  floating 
vaporousness  of  clouds,  the  lustre  of  water  and  precious 
crystals,  and  the  bloom  of  a  peach  or  a  rose-leaf.  Not 
our  most  perfect  manufacturers  can  reach  these.  Take 
a  poppy,  and  place  it  beside  the  richest  and  finest  silk 
of  the  brightest  red  that  can  be  dyed,  and  the  silk  will 
be  coarsened  and  deadened  by  the  contact.  The  rose, 
the  ideal  perfection  of  a  flower  in  form,  color,  and 
perfume,  owes  its  glowing  hues  to  the  translucent 
texture  of  its  manifold  petals,  lying  each  over  each  in 
loveliest  curves  and  involutions,  their  transmitted  color 
growing  fuller  and  fuller  in  exquisite  gradations,  for 
their  very  shadows,  are  color,  till  the  innermost  folds 


74  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

close  at  last  over  the  fragrant  heart  of  the  flower. 
"  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of 
these."  But  we  think  we  may  probably  succeed  bet- 
ter than  Solomon ;  and  we  have  a  muslin  rose  made 
with  plenty  of  carmine,  a  cotton-wool  middle,  and  a 
wire  stem,  and  we  pay  a  price  for  it,  and  bear  it  about 
with  satisfaction. 

Consider  the  blue  of  the  sky  :  it  is  not  a  bright,  flat, 
shallow,  even  tint,  but  it  seems  to  palpitate,  lighten, 
darken,  as  we  gaze ;  and  the  sunset  clouds  (I  am 
obliged  to  recur  to  the  sunset,  as  one  is  apt  to  be  a 
little  out  of  practice  as  regards  the  sunrise),  besides 
never  remaining  of  the  same  hue  for  two  minutes  to- 
gether, are  of  such  an  impalpable  substance,  such  an 
ethereal,  spiritual  quality,  that  it  seems  as  if  we  should 
scarcely  dare  describe,  much  less  imitate  them. 

These,  then,  are  a  few  of  Nature's  qualities  of  color. 
Evanescence,  translucence,  constant  variation  and  ex- 
treme delicacy  of  texture,  —  these  go  to  produce  her 
brilliant  effects  of  color,  which,  as  I  think,  we  must 
give  up  all  thoughts  of  imitating,  as  we  work  under 
such  different  conditions.  In  dyeing,  embroidering, 
painting,  it  is  of  no  use  trying  for  that  brightness ;  in 
the  attempt,  generally,  every  other  desirable  quality 
must  be  sacrificed,  and  the  brightness,  even  if  we  do 
in  some  measure  succeed,  must  be  in  a  degree  faded 
and  sullied  the  first  time  the  manufacture  is  worn  or 
used.  The  infinite  powers  of  Nature  supply  the  place 
of  the  faded  flower  every  day  with  a  fresh  one,  and  the 
sunlight  is  ever  fresh  and  new ;  while  our  dresses  and 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          75 

carpets  and  curtains  must  last  a  certain  time,  as  they 
do  not  grow  spontaneously  to  the  hand.  Seeing  that 
this  is  the  case,  let  us  give  up  from  the  first  intense 
brightness  of  color,  as  being  in  goods  of  our  own 
manufacture  unserviceable,  unlasting  (the  dye  injuring 
the  solid  qualities  of  the  fabric),  fatiguing  to  the  eye, 
needing  frequent  renewal,  and  of  doubtful  beauty  from 
the  first. 

When  the  mode  of  extracting  dyes  from  coal-tar  was 
invented,  the  common  admiration  for  gaudy  colors  was 
raised  to  its  utmost  by  the  intensity,  the  hard,  un- 
gradated,  glaring,  metallic  brilliancy,  of  the  magentas, 
the  mauves,  the  emerald  greens,  the  unmitigated  blues, 
that  were  then  produced  :  it  was  as  if  they  had  thrown 
people  off  their  balance  as  regards  color,  and  had 
aroused  all  the  worst  tastes  of  our  nature.  I  find  that 
they  bore,  besides  those  I  have  mentioned,  the  eupho- 
nious names  of  violine,  roseine,  fuchsine,  solferino, 
emeraldine,  azuline :  there  is  something  cloying  and 
sticky  about  the  very  names. 

It  seems  to  me  that  dyeing  the  hair  bright  yellow, 
and  other  arts  besides,  must  have  been  invented  at  the 
same  time ;  for  how  should  delicate  natural  tints  of 
hair  and  complexion  bear  the  juxtaposition  of  such  in- 
tense forced  brilliancy  without  a  little  artificial  height- 
ening to  help  them  ? 

But  those  intense  dyes  have  had  their  day :  we  are 
no  longer  called  upon  to  admire,  and  seldom  even  to 
see  them.  I  trust  they  will  never  re-appear.  They 
were  bad  enough  in  rich  material ;  the  silky  shimmer 


76  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  soft  folds  mitigated  their  glare  :  but  I  cannot  re- 
member without  a  shudder  the  sickly  purplish  hue 
that  overspread  magenta  ribbons  after  they  had  seen 
the  sun  a  few  times,  and  into  what  a  greenish  pallor 
mauve  stuffs  feebly  relapsed  after  a  little  wear. 

These  aniline  colors  are  the  result  of  aiming  at 
brightness  as  the  first  object;  but,  in  spite  of  their 
brightness,  they  are  raw  and  cold.  They  have  no  affin- 
ity with  the  natural  tints  of  complexion  and  hair,  so 
they  offend  against  every  principle  of  harmony.  In  na- 
ture, —  "  all  this  innumerous-colored  scene  of  things," 
—  colors  are  never  raw  :  there  is  always  some  admix- 
ture, softening,  gradating.  If,  as  we  have  seen,  natural 
colors  in  strong  effects  of  light  surpass  in  brilliancy 
any  dyes  of  ours,  they  have  their  soberer  effects  as 
well,  and  other  qualities  that  we  can  avail  ourselves  of. 
And  as  the  luminous  transparency  of  sea-water,  the 
melting,  dewy  tints  of  the  sky,  the  tender  bloom  of 
fruit,  the  exquisite  texture  of  flowers,  are  impossible 
to  be  imitated  by  any  processes  of  ours,  let  us  ac- 
knowledge at  once  that  all  this  is  of  no  use  trying  at ; 
but  let  us  at  the  same  time  consider  what  it  is  that  we 
can  do,  and  try  and  establish  some  principles  to  go 
upon,  —  principles  of  harmony  in  color.  We  have  only 
to  think  what  harmony  means  in  music,  to  understand 
what  the  expression  is  intended  to  convey  when  it  is 
applied  to  color.  It  consists,  in  music,  of  the  unity, 
connection,  similarity,  and  agreement  of  tones,  so  as 
to  produce  beautiful  effects,  sometimes  soothing,  some- 
times exhilarating,  always  fresh  and  various,  their  com- 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          77 

binations  being,  within  certain  restrictions,  practically 
unlimited.     So  precisely  with  color-harmony. 

The  principles  which  will  be  found  safe  guides  both 
in  house  decoration  and  dress  may  be  arranged  under 
five  heads,  —  analogy,  contrast,  variety,  delicacy,  rej- 
petition. 

X  To  explain  what  I  mean  by  harmony  of  analogy,  I 
!  will  suppose  a  lady  of  fair  complexion  and  delicate 
coloring  to  be  seeking  harmonious  tints  for  an  entire 
costume.  Her  hair  is  light  brown,  so  she  may  choose  a 
darker,  fuller  brown  for  the  dress  ;  her  complexion  will 
bear  a  delicate  pink,  so  the  brown  of  her  dress  must 
incline  more  to  dove  than  to  russet,  and  in  the  brown 
bonnet  that  matches  her  dress  there  may  be  a  delicate 
pink  feather  and  lining ;  and  in  the  lining  of  her  para- 
sol, and  the  gloves,  the  pink  should  be  repeated,  per- 
haps of  a  slightly  fuller  piak,  but  still  not  deeper  than 
the  pink  of  the  under  side  of  a  mushroom. 

I  have  seen  a  drawing-room  furnished  in  similar 
tones,  only  with  a  somewhat  wider  range.  The  brown 
was  a  little  warmer,  and  in  stamped  velvet  for  the 
chair-coverings;  some  of  the  cushions  and  the  mantle- 
border  embroidered  with  wild  roses  and  yellow  centres  ; 
the  walls,  pink  of  two  shades ;  the  curtains,  of  brown 
figured  silk  lined  with  pink ;  and  the  carpet,  a  blend- 
ing of  all  these  tints  together. 

Thus,  by  beginning  with  some  color  having  natural 
fitness  to  recommend  it,  and  using  one  or  two  of  its 
modifying  tints  taken  separately,  by  the  union  of  the 
whole  we  get  a  harmony  of  analogy. 


78  LECTURES  O.V  ART. 

/  Harmony  by  contrast  is  on  a  different  principle. 
,'We  must  suppose  a  brilliant  complexion,  and  dark  hair 
and  eyes,  or  brown  eyes  and  red-gold  hair.  The  natu- 
ral coloring  already  offers  strong  contrasts,  so  pale,  soft, 
and  subdued  tints  seem  out  of  place  and  ineffective. 
Cardinal-red,  gold,  cream-color,  and  black,  would  per 
haps  suit  the  dark  hair  and  eyes ;  and  blue  and  flesh- 
colored  brocade  of  Louis  Quinze  might  suit  the  red- 
gold  hair  and  brown  eyes.  It  seems  to  me  a  sure  rule, 
that  persons  whose  natural  coloring  is  in  a  low  key, 
one  tint  nearly  assimilating  with  another,  should  wear 
soft  tones  of  color  in  dress,  also  nearly  assimilating 
with  each  other ;  and  where  the  natural  coloring  offers 
strong  contrasts,  the  coloring  of  the  dress  should  be 
full  and  strong  also.  I  cannot  think  that  strong  con- 
trast can  ever  be  good  in  the  coloring  •  of  a  room, 
where,  it  seems  to  me,  repose  and  softened  light  are 
always  needed.  Here  is  an  arrangement  of  contrast 
in  coloring,  however,  which  still  seems  simple  and 
harmonious :  two  full  blues,  two  rather  greener  ones, 
and  two  shades  of  a  flesh-color-like  pink.  This  color- 
ing may  be  seen  in  brocades  of  the  time  of  Louis 
Quinze. 

The  next  principle  I  would  suggest  is  variety.  It 
is  an  immemorial  custom,  that  dining-room  curtains 
should  be  red,  with  leather  chairs,  red  tablecloth,  and 
Turkey  carpet  in  which  red  prevails.  There  is  not 
much  variety  in  this  time-honored  fashion,  nor  is  there 
sometimes  in  the  manifestations  of  the  new.  I  saw 
a  drawing-room  the  other  day  with  a  peacock-feather- 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          79 

patterned  wall-paper,  dado  and  woodwork  of  peacock 
blue,  and  curtains  and  chair-coverings  of  peacock- 
patterned  chintz  exactly  matching  the  wall-paper.  The 
result  was  flat  and  monotonous,  in  my  opinion.  Both 
these  are  instances  of  want  of  variety.  I  would  never 
recommend  chairs  to  be  covered  with  stuff  like  the 
curtains,  or  the  walls  to  be  like  either.  The  walls  of 
the  dining-room  may  be  a  brownish  yellow ;  the  cur- 
tains, of  a  mixed  red  and  yellow  —  the  yellow  a  little 
pinkish ;  the  chairs  plain  red ;  and  the  carpet  brown 
and  yellow  and  red  and  a  little  green.  A  great  deal 
of  pleasure  can  be  felt  in  the  variety  of  these  tints, 
which  nevertheless  produce  a  unity  of  effect  when  re- 
garded as  a  whole.  It  is  a  good  rule,  if  the  walls  have 
a  pattern  on  them,  that  the  curtains  should  be  plain, 
and  vice  versa:  so  a  dress  should  not  be  entirely 
figured  or  embroidered,  but  only  in  portions,  that  the 
design  may  show  all  the  more  richly. 

To  come  to  the  next  point,  —  delicacy.  By  deli- 
cacy, I  do  not  necessarily  mean  paleness  :  delicacy  of 
effect  is  gained  by  suiting  exactly  the  color  to  the 
material.  To  muslin  and  such-like  flimsy  substances, 
full  bright  tints  are  most  unsuitable  :  pale,  tender  hues, 
and  light  tracery  of  pattern,  belong  to  them  ;  still  deli- 
cacy in  these  does  not  involve  insipidity,  which  pov- 
erty of  tone  and  design  would  cause.  For  richer  stuffs, 
in  silk  and  satin  and  velvet,  fuller  hues  are  quite  suit- 
able :  the  shimmer,  the  shifting  of  lights  and  shadows, 
the  bloom  of  the  texture,  modifies  the  effect  of  a  full 
color  which  in  a  dull  and  common  stuff  would  be  flat 


80  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  heavy.  This  principle  should  lead  us  not  to  offend 
the  delicate  tints  of  flesh  and  hair  by  surrounding  them 
with  coarse  hues  and  hard  masses,  but  to  blend  and 
tone  down  all  our  adornments  according  to  the  exam- 
ple of  Nature,  who  so  carefully  softens  tints  and  out- 
lines,—  for  example,  where  the  hair  begins  on  the 
temples  and  the  eyebrows,  and  the  coloring  of  cheek 
and  lip.  We  instinctively  avoid  clothing  an  infant  in 
dark  and  hard  colors ;  it  would  seem  unsuitable  and 
discordant.  Do  not  let  us  treat  ourselves  so  very 
much  worse. 

The  senses  do  not  recognize  a  weak  impression  at 
the  same  time  as  a  stronger  one.  We  cannot  listen 
properly  to  music  going  on  in  a  room  when  people  are 
talking  and  laughing  loudly.  A  strong  flavor  in  a  dish, 
such  as  garlic  or  onions,  overpowers  every  other  it  may 
possess :  so  strong  colors  in  dress  and  room-decora- 
tion catch  the  eye,  and  fill  it  to  the  exclusion  of  every 
softer  and  more  delicate  one. 

The  fourth  principle  is  repetition.  Never  have  a 
color  concentrated  in  one  spot,  but  take  care  to  repeat 
it  in  others.  If  you  have  blue-and-white  chintz  in  one 
corner  of  your  room,  put  some  in  another  corner  to 
balance  it.  If  you  have  a  pink  feather  in  your  bonnet, 
wear  pink  gloves  or  a  pink  parasol.  To  isolate  a  color 
is  to  draw  the  eye  to  that  particular  point,  and  to  keep 
it  there,  instead  of  gently  leading  it  on  from  one  to 
another. 

In  these  ways,  therefore,  —  by  using  either  a  color- 
analogy  or  a  color-contrast,  and  observing  delicacy, 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,   ETC.          8 1 

variety,  and  repetition,  —  can  harmonious  arrangement 
of  color  be  brought  together  and  applied.  "  It  is  the 
best  possible  sign  of  a  color,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "when 
nobody  who  sees  it  knows  what  to  call  it,  or  how  to 
give  an  idea  of  it  to  anybody  else.  Even  among  sim- 
ple hues,  the  most  valuable  are  those  which  cannot  be 
defined :  the  most  precious  purples  will  look  brown 
beside  pure  purple ;  and  the  most  precious  greens  will 
be  called  blue  if  seen  beside  pure  green,  and  green  if 
seen  beside  pure  blue."  A  color  may  be  very  agree- 
able in  its  real  nature,  but  lose  all  its  pleasing  qualities 
when  wrongly  combined.  Harmony  not  only  brings 
agreeable  tones  together,  but  establishes  an  affinity 
between  them,  both  in  music  and  in  coloring. 

The  worst  color-discord  is  said  to  be  purple  and 
green.  Yet  you  will  say,  Ho.v  lovely  the  violet  is, 
half  hidden  in  its  green  leaves  !  And  so  it  is :  but 
its  effect  is  beyond  our  imitation  ;  it  is  dependent  on 
tone,  and  texture,  and  quality,  too  shifting  and  delicate 
for  our  processes  to  follow.  Violet  of  the  u:;ual  tone 
of  quality  is  the  most  unbecoming  color  to  nearly  all 
complexions  :  it  makes  sallow  ones  appear  almost  or- 
ange, and  fair  ones  yellowish-green.  But  there  are 
many  kinds  of  purple,  —  redder  or  bluer :  there  are 
lilac,  lavender,  peach-blossom,  plum,  amethyst,  puce, 
mulberry,  down  to  slate  and  French  gray.  Out  of 
these  some  tints  might  be  chosen  and  worn,  but  I  sup- 
pose none  of  them  would  be  suitable  for  room-dec- 
oration. What  among  them  might  be  agreeable  in 
daylight,  would  be  of  a  very  dull  brown  at  night. 


82  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Purple  is  certainly  the  most  difficult  color :  its  more 
beautiful  hues  tend  to  red  rather  than  blue. 

Green  has  been  said  to  be  a  color  that  is  appre- 
ciated only  by  cultivated  faculties  :  it  has  its  dangers, 
as  well  as  its  attractions.  The  introduction  of  great 
quantities  of  green  is  also  said  to  be  one  of  the  mis- 
takes that  always  creep  in  when  society  is  betome 
artificial ;  and  there  are  signs  at  the  present  moment 
that,  in  aesthetic  coloring,  we  are  declining  into  a 
"  green  and  yellow  melancholy."  Still,  it  is  reposeful 
and  soothing  to  the  eye,  and  out  of  all  its  various  hues 
some  are  very  lovely,  —  bird's-egg  green,  grass-green, 
sea-green,  tea-green,  myrtle,  olive.  Green  should  in- 
cline to  yellow  rather  than  to  blue.  A  pea-green 
could  never  be  becoming :  its  best  and  most  charac- 
teristic shade  is  not  at  all  bright,  but  inclines  to  a 
brownish  hue.  A  green  always  becomes  more  agree- 
able by  candle-light,  which  adds  a  further  proportion 
of  yellow  to  it.  I  find,  in  a  color-treatise  published 
some  twenty  years  ago,  a  recommendation  to  wear 
green  with  red  hair,  by  way  of  diminishing  its  intens- 
ity. Red  hair  is  now  such  a  fortunate  possession,  that 
this  piece  of  advice  seems  highly  unnecessary ;  and 
we  would  rather  wish  to  heighten  than  diminish  the 
effect.  Some  kinds  of  blue  will  do  this.  I  always  feel 
that  blue  stands  better  by  itself  than  any  color,  and 
cannot  very  agreeably  be  mixed  with  any  thing  but 
white.  Used  in  a  room,  its  tone  should  approach 
green,  and  in  dress  it  should  always  be  modified  by 
gray  or  yellow  in  some  proportion,  and  never  used 


DECORATIVE  ART— COLOR,   ETC.          83 

pure  :  it  is  too  cold  and  hard.  Red  is  the  color  that 
first  attracts  the  untrained  sense,  and  its  different  tones 
seem  to  be  the  most  numerous  of  all.  There  is  ordi- 
narily only  a  very  small  proportion  of  red  in  a  land- 
scape ;  so,  to  supply  the  want,  the  common  device  of 
the  painter  of  rustic  scenes  is  to  introduce  an  old 
woman  with  a  red  cloak.  Only  in  Devonshire  and 
Somersetshire  are  reds  plentiful  in  nature ;  and  there 
the  red-tiled  roofs,  the  red  cattle,  the  red  sandstone 
cliffs,  the  red  earth,  please  the  original  hereditary 
taste.  In  dress,  dark  shades  of  red  will  bring  out 
whatever  red  there  may  be  in  the  hair ;  a  brick-red 
lends  a  little  glow  to  fair,  pale  complexions. 

Yellow  is  a  color  of  which,  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
the  best  effects  are  neglected :  it  ought  to  be  more 
used  in  town  houses,  so  as  to  bring  a  little  artificial 
sunlight  into  them.  It  cannot  be  used,  however,  in 
masses,  but  must  be  broken  and  mingled  with  other 
colors.  Yellow  and  white  are  as  agreeable  in  their 
way  as  blue  and  white.  Mixed  shades  of  yellow  and 
white,  and  a  little  myrtle  green,  form  a  pleasing  com- 
bination. 

Many  ladies  in  the  present  day  choose  black  for 
their  ordinary  wear,  as  being  the  most  convenient  and 
comfortable  way  of  solving  the  question  of  color.  But 
it  is  not  a  solution  :  it  is  an  evasion.  As  such,  it  has 
its  advantages ;  it  absorbs  color  and  reduces  form, 
and  is  unremarkable  and  economical.  Black  is  the 
extinction  of  color,  and  it  absorbs  some  proportion  of 
every  color  near  which  it  is  placed.  A  black  gown 


84  LECTURES  OAT  ART. 

and  bonnet  make  a  pale  face. look  more  pale,  and 
lower  a  high  color.  Colors  in  embroidery,  on  a  black 
ground,  are  less  brilliant  than  they  would  be  on  any 
other.  I  should  banish  black  altogether  from  room- 
decoration,  except  in  the  form  of  slender  lines,  such 
as  chair-rails,  slim  table-legs,  and  narrow  picture- 
frames. 

While  black  weakens  color  by  absorbing  some  of  it 
into  itself,  white  strengthens  and  heightens  the  effect 
of  color  placed  near  it,  as  it  takes  away  from  that 
color  the  white  light  which  enfeebled  it.  Clear,  soft 
white,  which  produces  the  effect  of  gray,  brings  out 
the  delicate  freshness  of  youthful  tints  ;  and  so  it  finds 
its  most  agreeable  use  in  the  dress  of  infants,  and 
also  of  young  girls  on  not  the  least  interesting  and 
important  occasions  of  their  lives.  "There  are  not 
many  tints,"  says  Mr.  Morris,  "  fit  to  color  a  wall  with. 
Here  is  a  short  list :  a  solid  red,  not  very  deep,  but 
rather  describable  as  a  full  pink,  and  toned  both  with 
yellow  and  blue  —  a  very  fine  color,  if  you  can  hit  it ; 
a  light  orangy  pink,  to  be  used  rather  sparingly ;  a  pale 
golden  tint,  i.e.,  a  yellowish- brown  —  a  very  difficult 
color  to  hit;  and  a  color  between  these  two  last — 
call  it  pale  copper-color.  All  these  three  you  must 
be  careful  over,  for  if  you  get  them  rnuddy  or  dirty 
you  are  lost."  And  on  ending  these  remarks  on  color, 
which  merely  form  the  first  half  of  my  present  lecture, 
and  which  pretend  to  be  no  more  than  suggestions 
towards  an  appreciation  of  it,  I  wish  to  point  out  the 
differences  between  three  orders  of  coloring,  to  one  or 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,   ETC.          8$ 

other  of  which  every  hue,  every  dye,  every  stain,  used 
in  these  days,  belongs. 

First,  there  is  what  I  may  be  perhaps  allowed  to 
call  Philistine  coloring,  —  that  produced  by  the  deep, 
intense  aniline  dyes ;  cold,  flat,  ungradated,  aiming  at 
brilliancy  alone,  without  tone  or  harmony. 

Second,  the  mock-aesthetic  coloring,  which,  aiming 
not  at  Art,  but  at  artisticalness,  —  if  I  may  coin  such 
a  word,  —  is  all  deadness,  darkness,  dulness,  and  is 
also  without  tone  and  harmony. 

The  third  kind  is  less  easy  to  describe.  It  is  the 
only  true  coloring,  properly  so  called ;  in  producing 
which  vegetable  dyes  only  are  used.  I  can  only  say 
that  good  coloring  is  essentially  clean  and  clear  and 
cheerful,  like  a  healthy  complexion,  having  tone  and 
harmony ;  and  I  feel  that  I  cannot  too  strongly  insist 
on  the  difference  between  this  and  much  that  is  con- 
sidered aesthetic  and  artistic. 

When  the  eye  has  once  learned  to  appreciate  the 
differences  between  these  three  classes,  I  am  bold  to 
say  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  where  the  choice 
will  be  fixed. 

And  now  let  me  pass  to  the  few  words  about  the 
arts  of  dress  and  needlework  that  I  have  time  for. 
They  might  easily  occupy  a  course  of  lectures  of 
themselves  ;  but  it  is  only  possible  at  present  to  indi- 
cate slightly  and  rapidly  the  place  they  fill  in  the  gen- 
eral group  of  the  decorative  arts.  The  two  arts  of 
dress  and  needlework  have  been  closely  connected 
from  a  very  early  time,  even  from  when  the  wise  man 


86  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

said  of  the  excellent  woman,  "  She  maketh  herself 
coverings  of  tapestry  :  her  clothing  is  silk  and  purple." 

Periods  of  beautiful  and  dignified  costume  have 
also  been  periods  of  fine  embroidery,  one  art  leading 
to  and  helping  on  the  production  of  the  other.  Nor 
are  they  without  their  influence  on  other  arts  besides. 
In  times  when  the  general  type  of  the  human  form  is 
a  poorly  developed  one,  and  distorted  and  trammelled 
by  fashion,  there  can  be  no  great  school  of  sculpture. 
So  without  fine  and  simple  and  rich  dressing  and  stuffs 
and  embroidery,  there  will  be  the  less  prospect  of  a 
great  school  of  painting.  It  was  the  perfect  physical 
development  of  the  Greeks  that  helped  to  educate  the 
school  of  Pheidias,  and  it  was  the  beautiful  costume 
of  the  Italians  in  the  fifteenth  century  that  helped  to 
educate  and  form  the  Venetian  and  Florentine  schools 
of  painting. 

That  dress  becomes  an  art  from  the  moment  it 
ceases  to  be  merely  a  covering  and  a  protection  from 
weather,  need  not  be  doubted.  We  often  read  of  the 
dress  of  savages,  which  consists  frequently  more  of 
decoration  than  of  any  thing  else  ;  and  we  read  of  the 
fine  Hnen  in  which  Joseph  was  arrayed  by  the  hands 
of  Pharaoh. 

So  does  needlework  become  an  art  from  the  mo- 
ment that  it  is  more  than  merely  a  drawing  of  the 
edges  of  skins  together  with  a  fish-bone  needle,  which 
was  probably  the  earliest  kind  of  sewing ;  and  in  the 
fifteenth  century  before  Christ  we  read  of  embroidery 
in  blue  and  in  purple,  in  scarlet  and  in  fine  linen. 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,   ETC.          8/ 

Both  these  arts,  in  their  various  departments  and 
branches,  fill  in  some  way  or  other  so  large  a  part  in 
the  lives  of  women  now,  and  have  done  so  in  all  past 
time,  that  it  cannot  but  be  well  to  learn  to  think 
clearly  and  reasonably  of  them,  practising  the  art  of 
needlework  with  pleasure  and  intelligence,  fulfilling 
the  requirements  both  of  beauty  and  use  ;  and  in  the 
art  of  dress,  which  we  must  all  of  us  practise 
whether  we  will  or  no,  still  fulfilling  the  same  require- 
ments, conforming  to  fashion  to  a  certain  extent,  but 
not  blindfold  and  with  too  great  confidence,  always 
reserving  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  with  it 
the  charm  of  individuality,  —  style,  in  its  true  sense. 
The  greatest  objection  to  the  despotism  of  fashion  is 
the  uniformity  it  leads  to.  It  is  surprising  how  willing 
people  are  to  forsake  their  own  rights  in  this  matter, 
and  seriously  aim  at  looking  like  every  one  else.  The 
fringe  of  hair  worn,  however  becoming  it  may  be  to 
some  young  faces,  however  piquant  in  effect  it  may 
sometimes  be  in  itself,  has  the  tendency  to  make 
every  young  lady  look  alike,  and  destroy  the  effect  of 
individual  attractions.  There  are  no  doubt  good 
principles,  good  customs,  lying  at  the  root  of  some  of 
the  prevailing  fashions  of  the  day,  which  those  who 
decry  them  are  apt  to  ignore ;  as,  for  instance,  when  a 
fashion  for  short  dresses  lasts  for  any  length  of  time, 
we  may  be  sure  that  a  healthy  custom  of  walking 
much  in  the  open  air  prevails  among  women. 

Those  parts  of  the  fashions  that  originate  in  reason- 
able requirements,  habits,  customs,  hours,  —  these  are 


88  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

always  rightly  to  be  followed ;  but  those  other  parts 
that  have  their  origin  in  a  mere  thirst  for  novelty,  or 
love  of  display,  should  be  looked  at  with  suspicion, 
and  not  too  hastily  adopted.  The  fashion  of  the  gar- 
ments of  the  last  few  years  has  had  this  advantage, 
that  it  has  offered  plenty  of  freedom  for  individual 
taste,  whenever  people  were  willing  to  take  advantage 
of  that  freedom,  besides  possessing  in  itself  many  ele- 
ments of  grace  and  comfort,  of  beauty  and  use.  But 
there  always  seems  to  be  the  danger  of  spoiling  a 
good  idea  in  costume  by  exaggeration.  Not  content, 
a  few  years  ago,  with  the  stateliness  and  dignity  of 
ample  flowing  skirts,  we  distended  and  stiffened  them 
with  wire  cages ;  and  in  later  years,  not  content  with 
scantier  and  more  graceful  drapery,  expressing  the 
harmonious  lines  of  the  figure,  we  bound  our  dresses 
tightly  round  us,  almost  abolishing  falling  folds,  and 
scarcely  allowing  ourselves  room  to  move.  I  suppose 
that  the  height  of  the  fashion  now  is  a  happy  combi- 
nation of  both  the  tightness  and  the  crinoline.  Some 
fashionable  milliner  invents  a  bead  trimming,  and  we 
clothe  ourselves  in  beads  from  head  to  foot.  Some 
fashionable  lady,  with  a  brilliantly  clear  complexion, 
finds  black  lace  becoming ;  and  instantly  white  frills, 
collars,  and  cuffs  vanish  from  the  scene,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  many  a  less  dazzling  bloom.  There  are  also 
useless  and  ugly  superfluities  attending  the  fashion  of 
the  day,  respecting  which  we  should  do  well  to  ques- 
tion ourselves.  All  kinds  of  things  added  on  after 
the  dress  itself  is  assumed  should  be  looked  on  with 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          89 

suspicion.  A  modern  writer  estimates  the  number  of 
articles  of  clothing  and  adornment  that  a  woman  has 
on  by  the  time  she  is  fully  dressed,  at  forty-nine.  Out 
of  these  surely  some  may  be  superfluous.  A  year  or 
two  ago  I  used  frequently  to  notice  that  a  young  lady 
would  wear  round  her  neck,  in  morning  dress,  a  collar, 
a  lace  tie,  a  tight  velvet,  a  ribbon,  a  brooch,  and  a 
chain  and  locket :  that  would  make  seven  out  of 
forty-nine.  Brt  I  think  that  now  more  simplicity 
prevails. 

And  before  I  leave  this  part  of  the  subject,  I  must 
ask  you  to  bear  with  me  if  I  join  my  feeble  protest 
to  the  many  powerful  and  able  ones  raised  against 
a  fashion  —  an  epidemic,  rather  —  which  has  arisen, 
subsided,  only  again  to  re-appear,  at  different  periods 
of  modern  history.  I  have  reason  to  think  that  it  is 
raging  at  present  with  some  severity ;  and  its  victims 
are  supposed,  not  without  reason,  to  yearly  swell  the 
bills  of  mortality.  I  mean  the  epidemic  of  tight- 
lacing.  Those  who  wilfully  incur  the  consequences  of 
this  practice  must  have  strangely  incredulous  minds  : 
they  disbelieve  all  doctors,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and, 
what  is  more  to  my  purpose,  they  disbelieve  artists ; 
and  the  verdict  of  all  the  ages  as  to  the  beauty  of 
antique  statues  has,  for  them,  been  given  in  vain.  The 
Venus  of  Melos  and  all  the  goddesses  of  Olympus 
are  to  them  as  nothing.  Instead  of  a  gentle  undu- 
lating line  from  the  shoulder  to  the  hip,  they  prefer  a 
sudden  sharp  bend  like  the  narrow  part  of  an  hour- 
glass. In  times  when  figures  of  the  hour-glass  con- 


90  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

tour  are  admired,  there  can  be  no  good  sculpture ;  for 
there  is  scarcely  any  natural  beauty  of  figure,  or  ease 
and  grace  of  movement,  left  for  the  artist  to  admire, 
to  learn  and  study  from. 

In  a  discourse  delivered  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago,  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  to  the  students  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  he  says,  after  some  allusions  to  the 
taste  of  that  day  in  dress,  "  All  these  fashions  are  very 
innocent ;  neither  worth  disquisition,  nor  any  endeavor 
to  alter  them ;  as  the  change  would,  in  all  probability, 
be  equally  distant  from  Nature.  The  only  circumstance 
against  which  indignation  may  reasonably  be  moved 
is  where  the  operation  is  painful,  or  destructive  to 
health,  such  as  some  of  the  practices  at  Otaheite,  and 
the  strait-lacing  of  the  English  ladies,  —  of  the  last 
of  which  practices,  how  destructive  it  must  be  to 
health  and  long  life  the  professor  of  anatomy  took 
an  opportunity  of  proving  a  few  days  since  in  this 
Academy." 

This  was  spoken  by  Sir  Joshua  on  Dec.  10,  1776. 
It  is  sad  to  think  that  so  many  of  the  English  ladies 
are  still  unconvinced,  though  many  professors  of 
anatomy  since  that  day  have  said  the  same  thing. 

"  I  believe  true  nobleness  in  dress,"  says  Mr.  Rus- 
kin,  "to  be  an  important  means  of  education,  as  it 
certainly  is  a  necessity  to  any  nation  which  wishes  to 
possess  living  art,  concerned  with  portraiture  of  human 
nature.  No  good  historical  painting  ever  yet  existed, 
or  ever  can  exist,  where  the  dresses  of  the  people  of 
the  time  are  not  beautiful ;  and  had  it  not  been  for 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          QI 

the  lovely  and  fantastic  dressing  of  the  thirteenth  to 
the  sixteenth  centuries,  neither  French  nor  Florentine 
nor  Venetian  art  could  have  risen  to  any  thing  like 
the  rank  it  reached.  Still,  even  then,  the  best  dress- 
ing was  never  the  costliest;  and  its  effect  depended 
much  more  on  its  beautiful  —  and,  in  early  times, 
modest  —  arrangement,  and  on  the  simple  and  lovely 
masses  of  its  color,  than  on  gorgeousness  of  clasp  or 
embroidery. 

"  The  splendor  and  fantasy  even  of  dress,  which  in 
these  days  we  pretend  to  despise,  or  in  which  if  we 
even  indulge  it  is  only  for  the  sake  of  vanity,  and 
therefore  to  our  infinite  harm,  were  in  those  early  days 
studied  for  love  of  their  true  beauty  and  honorable- 
ness,  and  became  one  of  the  main  helps  to  dignity 
of  character  and  courtesy  of  bearing.  Look  back  to 
what  we  have  been  told  of  the  dress  of  the  early 
Venetians,  that  it  was  so  invented  'that  in  clothing 
themselves  with  it,  they  might  clothe  themselves  also 
with  modesty  and  honor ; '  consider  what  nobleness 
of  expression  there  is  in  the  dress  of  any  of  the 
portrait  figures  of  the  great  times ;  nay,  what  perfect 
beauty,  and  more  than  beauty,  there  is  in  the  folding 
of  the  robe  round  the  imagined  form  even  of  the  saint 
or  of  the  angel ;  and  then  consider  whether  the  grace 
of  vesture  be  indeed  a  thing  to  be  despised.  We 
cannot  despise  it  if  we  would,  and  in  all  our  highest 
poetry  and  happiest  thought  we  cling  to  the  magnifi- 
cence which  in  daily  life  we  disregard.  ...  I  do  not 
merely  mean  magnificence  :  the  most  splendid  time 


92  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

was  not  the  best  time.  It  was  still  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  when  simplicity  and  gorgeousness  were  justly 
mingled,  and  the  leathern  girdle  and  the  clasp  of  bone 
were  worn,  as  well  as  the  embroidered  mantle,  that 
the  manner  of  dress  seems  to  have  been  the  noblest. 
The  chain  mail  of  the  knight,  flowing  and  falling  over 
his  form  in  lapping  waves  of  gloomy  strength,  was 
worn  under  full  robes  of  one  color  in  the  ground,  his 
crest  quartered  on  them,  and  their  borders  enriched 
with  subtle  illumination.  The  women  wore  first  a 
dress  close  to  the  form  in  like  manner,  and  their  long 
and  flowing  robes  veiling  them  up  to  the  neck,  and 
delicately  embroidered  round  the  hem,  the  sleeves, 
and  the  girdle.  The  use  of  plate  armor  gradually 
introduced  more  fantastic  types,  —  the  nobleness  of 
the  form  was  lost  beneath  the  steel ;  the  gradually 
increasing  luxury  and  vanity  of  the  age  strove  for  con- 
tinual excitement  in  more  quaint  and  extravagant  de- 
vices ;  and,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  dress  reached  its 
point  of  utmost  splendor  and  fancy,  being  in  many 
cases  still  exquisitely  graceful,  but  now,  in  its  morbid 
magnificence,  devoid  of  all  wholesome  influence  on 
manners.  From  this  point,  like  architecture,  it  was 
rapidly  degraded,  and  sank  through  the  buff  coat  and 
lace  collar  and  jack- boot,  to  the  bag- wig,  tailed  coat, 
and  high-heeled  shoe,  and  so  to  what  it  is  now." 

I  suppose  Mr.  Ruskin  would  not  allow  us  to  think 
that  there  is  any  good  thing  in  modern  dress;  but, 
rather  than  sink  into  utter  depression  and  hopelessness, 
let  us  consider  what  good  there  is,  and  seek  to  increase 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          93 

it.  I  know  that  in  these  days  some  intelligent  ladies 
have  learned  the  art  of  dressmaking  on  purpose  to 
modify  and  improve  the  form  and  construction  of  our 
garments,  and  I  am  in  hopes  that  the  reform  may  be 
complete  and  lasting.  Few  women  who  have  work  to 
do  in  life,  their  living  to  make,  or  families  to  care  for, 
can  take  the  trouble  to  set  fashion  at  defiance,  and 
wear  a  self-devised  costume.  The  opposition  to  estab- 
lished rule ;  the  difficulty  of  getting  original  ideas  sat- 
isfactorily carried  out ;  the  becoming  an  object  of 
special  remark  and  comment  to  one's  friends  and  the 
general  public,  —  these  things  seem  to  hinder  such  an 
enterprise,  and  make  one  feel  that  more  is  lost  than 
gained  by  the  attempt.  All  that,  I  think,  we  can 
clearly  see  our  way  to,  is,  by  observing  reason  and 
simplicity  in  moderately  fashionable  attire  to  gradually 
lead  the  way  to  improvement. 

As  to  form  of  garments,  speaking  generally,  soft, 
long,  flowing  lines  must  always  be  the  most  graceful : 
they  add  to  the  apparent  height  when  it  is  desirable 
to  do  so,  while  lines  and  folds  across  the  figure  shorten 
it.  Any  tightness  across  any  part  of  the  form  is  a  dis- 
cord, and  must  destroy  the  gracefulness  of  the  whole. 
Any  shape  that  seems  to  fetter  and  confine,  and  any 
that  really  does  so,  is  defective  ;  if  a  garment  interferes 
with  freedom  of  action,  there  must  be  something  wrong 
with  it.  And  as  to  the  laying- on  of  trimming,  rows 
and  rows  of  buttons  never  meant  to  button,  sham 
button-holes  actually  constructed  of  bits  of  silk  and 
cord  laid  on,  bows  of  ribbon  never  meant  to  tie,  im- 


94  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

movable  lattice-work  of  cords  or  laces,  sham  pockets 
where  none  exist  in  reality,  —  there  can  be  no  possible 
use  or  beauty  in  these.  If  the  material  of  a  gown  is 
rich  and  soft,  and  if  it  is  well  cut  and  fits  well,  every 
piece  of  superadded  trimming  goes  to  spoil  the  effect. 
I  except,  of  course,  lace,  which  softens  and  harmonizes 
the  general  effect ;  and  fringe,  when  its  origin  is  not 
too  hopelessly  lost  sight  of,  —  that  it  was  first  the 
fraying-out  and  knotting  of  the  edge  of  the  stuff  in 
certain  quantity.  And  if  the  material  is  plain  and 
ordinary,  and  intended  for  ordinary  occasions,  there  is 
all  the  greater  reason  to  keep  the  dress  simple,  and  to 
avoid  an  elaborate  and  over-studied  appearance.  A 
rigid  inquiry  as  to  the  use  and  beauty  of  every  piece 
of  added  trimming  and  adornment  we  often  mechani- 
cally wear  would  lead,  I  am  sure,  to  many  details  being 
discarded,  to  the  manifest  improvement  of  the  general 
effect.  There  is  such  a  pleasing  description  in  Rich- 
ardson's "  Clarissa,"  of  his  heroine,  that  I  cannot  help 
quoting  it  as  a  specimen  of  charming  costume.  It 
belongs  to  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
time  when  much  beautiful  and  delicate  embroidery  was 
produced. 

"Her  head-dress,"  says  Lovelace,  her  admirer,  "was 
a  Brussels  lace  mob  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  charm- 
ing turn  of  her  features ;  a  sky-blue  ribbon  illustrated 
that.  .  .  .  Her  morning-gown  was  a  pale  primrose- 
colored  paduasoy,  the  cuffs  and  robings  curiously  em- 
broidered with  a  pattern  of  roses  and  leaves ;  a  pair 
of  diamond  snaps  in  her  ears;  her  ruffles  were  the 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,   ETC.          95 

same  as  her  mob ;  her  apron,  flowered  lawn ;  her 
petticoat,  white  satin  quilted ;  blue  satin  her  shoes, 
without  lace,  —  for  what  need  has  the  prettiest  foot  in 
the  world  for  ornament? — neat  buckles  in  them;  and 
on  her  charming  arms  a  pair  of  velvet  cuffs  (?).  She  is 
sweetly  dressed,"  Lovelace  adds;  "and  there  is  such 
a  native  elegance  in  this  lady,  that  her  person  adorns 
what  she  wears,  more  than  dress  can  adorn  her."  This 
is  the  art  of  dress  carried  to  a  very  fine  perfection ; 
but  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  there  are,  in  every 
period,  people  —  both  men  and  women  —  of  refine- 
ment, of  judgment,  of  personal  charm,  of  good  taste, 
who  can  make  the  fashion  of  any  day  seem  becoming 
and  graceful. 

And  now  to  make  the  very  few  remarks  that  I  have 
time  for  on  the  subject  of  embroidery,  —  art-needle- 
work, as  we  call  it. 

It  is  many  years  since  the  samplers  of  our  grand- 
mothers gave  place  to  the  Berlin- wool  fancy-work  of 
our  earlier  days,  and  again  we  are  witnesses  to  another 
change.  An  art  of  greater  pretensions  than  either  has 
arisen,  and  we  are  bound  in  practising  it  to  see  that 
its  pretensions  are  genuine  and  genuinely  carried  out. 
If  we  consider  our  needlework  to  be  an  art,  we  must 
take  care  that  it  fulfils  the  first  conditions  of  a  work 
of  art ;  namely,  that  it  should  be  conceived,  arranged, 
and  carried  out  by  one  and  the  same  person.  Division 
of  labor  is  good  for  getting  through  the  drudgery  of 
manufacture,  but  bad  for  works  of  art.  This  is  the 
first  defect  of  the  Berlin-wool  work :  the  pattern  was 


96  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

drawn  and  colored  by  one  person,  the  materials  chosen 
by  a  second,  the  pattern  worked  by  a  third,  and  very 
often  grounded  by  a  fourth.  People  took  so  little 
interest  in  their  work,  and  were  so  lazy  about  it,  that 
the  very  canvas  had  to  be  woven  in  tiny  squares  so  that 
the  stitches  might  be  all  of  the  same  length  and  save 
all  trouble  of  judging.  Nothing  could  be  of  any  beauty 
done  in  so  mechanical  a  way.  Now,  m  art-needlework 
that  is  really  worthy  the  name,  the  materials  should  be 
chosen,  the  dimensions  fixed,  the  pattern  designed  or 
at  least  selected  and  arranged,  and  the  work  executed, 
by  one  and  the  same  person. 

After  all,  to  any  one  possessed  of  any  power  of 
drawing,  the  notion  of  designing  the  pattern  need  not 
seem  so  very  formidable.  A  plant  or  flower  drawn  as  if 
it  were  pressed  flat,  as  dried  flowers  are,  and  arranged, 
added  to,  taken  away  from,  so  as  to  fill  a  required 
space,  will  be  good  practice  as  a  beginning,  especially 
joined  with  some  study  of  any  good  examples  of  design 
that  may  be  accessible,  and  a  careful  observance  of 
some  chief  characteristic  of  the  chosen  flower.  I  said 
drawn  as  if  pressed  flat :  this  is  of  first  necessity.  The 
surface  decorated  by  embroidery  being  flat,  no  effort 
should  be  made  to  cause  the  design  upon  it  to  appear 
to  project,  —  to  stand  out  from  it.  It  is  quite  easy  by 
dexterous  shading  to  produce  an  appearance  of  this 
sort ;  but,  as  it  interferes  with  every  other  artistic  quali- 
ty of  design  and  color,  it  is  perfectly  inadmissible.  It 
interferes,  because,  when  the  eye  is  caught  by  strong 
shading  and  high  relief,  it  can  see  nothing  else;  no 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          97 

suitable  beauty  of  coloring  can  be  had  when  so  many 
shades  are  required ;  and  any  grace  of  design  is  lost 
because  of  the  strongly  standing-out  forms,  by  means 
of  which  one  sense  is  contradicted  by  another,  —  the 
sight  says  the  thing  is  round,  the  touch  says  it  is  flat. 
A  favorite  pattern  of  this  kind  was  a  succession  of 
shaded  cubes  which  actually  for  a  moment  deceived 
the  eye  ;  this  was  appropriately  destined  for  a  cushion, 
and  was  realistic  enough,  I  should  think,  to  effectually 
spoil  the  comfort  of  an  after-dinner  nap ;  one  might 
with  equal  good  taste  and  appropriateness  depict  a  row 
of  cannon-balls  or  cotton-reels.  The  dangerous  ease 
with  which  this  appearance  was  produced,  and  the  sort 
of  satisfaction  there  was  in  it,  like  that  there  is  in  suc- 
cessfully performing  some  small  conjuring-trick,  were 
the  reasons  of  its  popularity.  People  say  some  such 
thing  as  this :  "  If  we  represent  flowers,  we  imitate 
nature,  and  must  have  shading ;  see  such  and  such  a 
group,  it  is  like  a  picture."  To  which  I  reply,  "  That 
is  precisely  what  it  ought  not  to  be."  We  do  not  keep 
pictures  tumbling  about  the  room,  and  use  them  for 
cushions  or  footstools,  for  obvious  reasons. 

Those  objects  intended  for  use  must,  as  I  said  be- 
fore, have  decoration  upon  them  in  accordance  with 
their  use,  place,  and  material.  I  do  not  say  that  there 
should  be  no  shading  in  the  sense  of  variation  of  tone, 
but  that  there  should  be  no  effects  of  light  and  shade, 
—  no  appearance  of  projection ;  flat  surfaces  should 
have  flat  decoration  upon  them.  The  more  skilfully 
a  group  of  natural  objects,  say  of  flowers,  is  worked 


98  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  shaded,  so  as  to  produce  the  appearance  of  a 
painting,  the  less  suitable  is  it  for  a  cushion  or  a  foot- 
stool or  for  any  other  common  household  use.  The 
most  common  objects  now  seen  worked  in  crewels  are 
antimacassars,  or  chair-backs  as  they  are  more  con- 
veniently called.  These  have  a  distinct  use  belonging 
to  them  ;  and,  in  order  to  fulfil  it  properly,  they  should 
not  be  too  elaborately  or  richly  worked,  as  they  require 
frequent  washing ;  and,  moreover,  such  slight  things 
ought  not  to  draw  the  eye  from  more  important  effects 
in  the  room.  The  crewel-work  that  first  became  gen- 
eral found  its  chief  attraction,  strange  to  say,  in  its  ex- 
cessive and  barbarous  coarseness ;  people  seemed  to 
have  taken  down  the  crash  roller- towel  from  behind 
the  kitchen  door,  made  sprawling  lines  and  blots  of 
dark  and  dull  color  upon  it,  and  then  laid  it  out  in  the 
drawing-room  for  the  general  admiration.  Now,  it 
seems  to  me  that  in  the  drawing-room,  —  the  most 
ornamental  room  in  the  house,  used  only  for  rest  and 
amusement  and  society,  where  we  place  the  richest 
stuffs  and  most  decorative  objects  within  our  compass, 
—  such  coarse  and  unfinished-looking  productions  are 
out  of  place.  The  drawing-room  antimacassars  should 
be  of  finer  linen,  edged  with  lace.  The  design  may  be 
slight,  and  yet  delicate  and  graceful.  The  most  lasting, 
and  on  the  whole  the  most  appropriate  and  pleasing 
effect,  is  gained  by  working  the  entire  pattern  in  one- 
colored  silk  or  fine  crewel,  say  blue  or  gold-color  on  a 
white  ground.  These  will  wash  and  wear,  and  look 
delicate  and  harmonious  to  the  last. 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.          99 

But  the  time  would  fail  me  even  to  touch  upon  the 
many  articles  that  may  be  fitly  beautified  by  embroid- 
ery, and  the  various  kinds  of  embroider)'  that  are 
suited  to  each.  I  hope  you  will  take  the  trouble  to 
look  at  the  two  or  three  specimens  of  modern  needle- 
work, for  the  designing  and  working  of  most  of  which 
I  am  responsible.  They  may  serve  as  hints  to  those 
who  are  beginning  to  originate  for  themselves  patterns 
and  colors  and  styles.  As  regards  the  design,  it  is 
often  expedient  to  adapt  and  modify  the  lines  of  some 
ancient  pattern  that  one  may  come  across,  which  it 
would  seem  to  be  a  more  rewarding  occupation  to 
reproduce  than  to  spend  time  over  constructing  an 
original  design  that  might  be  but  of  moderate  merit. 
I  would  not  be  understood  to  insist  on  the  beauty  of 
a  piece  of  work  merely  because  it  is  old  :  some  of  the 
most  ancient  that  still  survives  —  the  Bayeux  tapestry, 
for  instance  —  can  only  be  interesting  for  historical 
reasons,  and  for  its  quaint  archaic  simplicity ;  the  older 
tapestry  may  be  useful  for  study,  as  having  many  beau- 
ties in  its  mode  of  representing  decorative  foliage  and 
flowers,  but  it  is  not  suitable  for  imitation  and  repro- 
duction by  modern  needles.  "  Better  models,"  I  now 
quote  from  Miss  Glaister's  book  on  Art  Embroidery, 
"  may  be  found  in  the  freer  work  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  and  of  the  early  part  of  the 
present  century.  All  embroidery  on  linen  grounds, 
whether  in  silks  or  worsteds,  is  well  worthy  of  atten- 
tion. In  this  style  are  massive  quilts  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  with  bold  flower  patterns  overlaying 


IOO  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

an  elaborately  quilted  ground.  There  is  also  coarser 
work  of  the  same  century  in  crewel  worsteds  :  some  of 
these  are  very  handsome  and  well  designed."  The 
curtains  and  hangings  of  Queen  Anne's  time  are  of 
excellent  design,  grave,  and  well  considered ;  so  that 
reproduction  of  some  of  their  patterns  and  colors 
would  accompany  appropriately  some  of  the  Queen 
Anne  fittings  and  furniture  of  the  modern  revival. 

At  the  present  time  few  houses,  I  should  think,  can 
be  without  some  specimens  of  Oriental  embroidery, 
whether  Indian  or  Japanese.  There  can  be  no  more 
admirable  models  of  color  and  design  than  the  deco- 
rative works  of  India.  But,  as  Mr.  Ruskin  points  out, 
"  it  has  one  curious  character  distinguishing  it  from  all 
other  art  of  equal  merit  in  design  :  //  never  represents 
a  natural  fact."  It  either  forms  its  compositions  out 
of  meaningless  fragments  of  color  and  flowings  of  line, 
or,  if  it  represents  any  living  creature,  it  represents 
that  creature  under  some  distorted  and  monstrous 
form.  Quite  different  is  the  spirit  and  intention  of 
Japanese  art,  which  with  wonderful  force  and  life,  like 
Nature's  own,  reproduces  some  of  her  loveliest  works, 
—  the  blossoming  tree,  the  poise  and  flight  of  birds, 
the  swirl  of  running  water,  the  level  lines  of  cloud ;  all 
are  drawn  and  colored  with  an  unerring  instinct,  as 
true  as  the  Indian,  only  with  such  different  aims.  I 
have  a  few  specimens  here  of  Indian  work,  and  some 
also  of  Turkish,  Cretan,  Maltese,  which  are  kindred  to 
it  in  spirit  and  intention ;  never  representing  Nature 
literally,  but  changing,  arranging,  conventionalizing. 


DECORATIVE  ART — COLOR,  ETC.        IOI 

In  the  Chinese  mandarin's  robe,  the  work  approxi- 
mates more  to  the  Japanese  method,  boldly  carrying 
out  a  brilliant  scheme  of  color,  and  following  the  forms 
and  the  growth  of  Nature  with  but  little  of  decorative 
stiffness. 

In  bringing  my  sketch  of  the  decorative  arts  to  a 
close,  I  cannot  but  regret  that  I  have  been  compelled 
to  make  that  sketch  so  meagre  and  broken ;  but  I  am 
tempted  to  hope  that  I  may  have  at  some  future  time 
an  opportunity  of  going  more  widely  and  deeply  into 
the  subject.  An  historical  survey  of  the  arts  of  dress 
and  needlework,  for  instance,  with  some  study  of  de- 
sign and  detail,  would  be,  I  think,  not  without  interest 
and  profit.  I  trust,  whatever  else  I  have  failed  in  ex- 
pressing, that  this  at  least  is  clear,  —  that  any  serious 
consideration  of  any  part  of  the  decorative  arts  can 
only  lead  by  one  path  to  one  conclusion ;  that  the 
decoration  of  workmanship  is  but  the  expression  of 
man's  pleasure  in  successful  labor ;  that  the  work  must 
be  sincere  and  good  to  be  successful,  and  that  will 
tend  to  make  the  decoration  appropriate  and  beauti- 
ful. Hitherto,  we  have  considered  those  arts  that 
minister  to  the  body,  —  to  its  uses  and  necessities.  I 
shall  now  seek  to  turn  your  attention  to  those  arts 
that  minister  to  the  mind  alone,  —  the  fine  arts,  in 
which'  ideas  of  beauty  become  dissevered  from  the  re- 
quirements of  material  use. 


IV.  — FINE  ARTS. 

IN  attempting  a  description  of  the  Fine  Arts,  their 
proper  aim  and  various  modes  of  expressing  that  aim, 
I  must  begin  by  reminding  you  of  what  I  said  in  the 
first  lecture.  Taking  the  definition  of  Art  in  its  widest 
sense,  —  "  human  labor  regulated  by  human  design," 
—  I  pointed  out  how,  by  three  stages,  we  reach  the 
subject  of  to-day. 

First,  The  arts  of  pure  use  ;  in  which  the  invention 
of  man,  aided  by  the  limbs  and  fingers,  works  —  un- 
helped  by  the  soul  —  to  fulfil  all  human  necessities 
apart  from  considerations  of  beauty. 

Secondly,  The  arts  of  decoration;  in  which  man, 
by  adorning  and  enriching  the  productions  of  the  arts 
of  pure  use,  ministers  to  a  new  sense,  — the  sense  of 
beauty,  the  artistic  sense,  taste,  whatever  we  may 
choose  to  call  it. 

Thirdly,  The  fine  arts;  which  appeal  entirely  to 


FINE  ARTS.  IO3 

that  new  sense,  and  exist  for  beauty  alone.  And  these 
last,  the  fine  arts,  are  our  subject  here  to-day,  —  poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  music,  architecture.  These  are,  as 
I  have  said,  the  very  head  and  crown  of  all  that  man 
has  ever  achieved  ;  take  away  these,  and  there  is  little 
left  but  mere  animal  life  ;  without  those,  Science  would 
lack  her  inspiration,  the  life  of  man  its  best  gifts,  and 
Religion  herself  would  miss  some  valuable  means  of 
appealing  to  the  heart  and  to  the  soul.  "  It  has 
always  been  found,"  says  Mr.  Symonds  in  his  "  Renais- 
sance in  Italy,"  "  that  the  arts  in  their  origin  are  de- 
pendent on  religion.  Art  aims  at  expressing  an  ideal, 
and  this  ideal  is  the  transfiguration  of  human  elements 
into  something  nobler,  felt  and  apprehended  by  the 
imagination.  Such  an  ideal,  such  an  all-embracing 
glorification  of  humanity,  only  exists  for  simple  minds 
and  unsophisticated  societies  in  the  form  of  religion." 
And  thus  the  productions  of  the  fine  arts  have  been 
among  the  most  lasting  and  stable  things  in  the  world's 
history.  "  The  human  race,"  Emerson  says,  "  takes 
charge  of  them,  that  they  shall  not  perish."  The 
carved  mammoth  -  bones,  the  pyramids,  the  ancient 
Celtic  stones,  the  Indian  rock-temples,  the  buried 
store  of  ancient  art  that  the  earth  still  yields  to  modern 
diggers  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  the  older  Greek 
marbles,  and  the  grim  remains  of  a  sculpture  earlier 
and  ruder  still,  and  old  Homeric  myths  and  stories  and 
hymns  older  than  they,  —  none  of  these  things  date 
later  than  three  thousand  years  back.  In  that  space  of 
time,  races  of  men  and  animals  have  become  extinct ; 


IO4  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

whole  systems  of  science  and  cycles  of  learning  have 
been  superseded  and  forgotten ;  religions,  govern- 
ments, kingdoms,  laws,  and  politics  have  crumbled 
and  disappeared  :  but  these  ancient  fragments  of  arch- 
itecture, sculpture,  poetry,  still  survive,  and  fill  the  mind 
with  vague  imaginings  of  that  ancient  world  of  which 
we  are  still  a  part,  inasmuch  as  we  still  possess  those 
instincts  —  we  may  call  them  immortal  —  which  lead 
us,  though  in  such  different  ways,  to  practise  and  study 
those  same  great  arts,  as  being  embodiments  of  the 
highest  conception  of  beauty,  spiritual  and  material 
of  which  human  nature  is  capable. 

Now,  to  ask  what  that  beauty  is,  is  to  ask  a  very 
difficult  question.  "  It  is  a  thing  by  itself,"  says  Mr. 
Ruskin,  "  not  dependent  on  truth,  or  usefulness,  or 
custom,  or  association  of  ideas,  though  it  is  certainly 
connected  with  all  of  them."  "  The  sense  of  beauty," 
says  Mr.  Darwin,  "  in  its  simplest  form,  is  nothing  more 
than  the  reception  of  a  peculiar  kind  of  pleasure  from 
certain  colors,  forms,  and  sounds."  All  this  does  not 
help  us  much ;  and  it  is  of  no  use,  I  think,  to  try  and 
answer  the  question  in  the  abstract,  "  to  find  a  univer- 
sal formula,"  but  to  consider  the  generally  accepted 
opinion  of  mankind  at  large,  and  to  consult  our  own 
individual  feelings  as  to  the  effect  produced  on  the 
mind  by  an  object  beautiful  or  the  reverse.  There  can 
be  no  universal  formula. 

In  some  things  we  instinctively  take  the  opinion  of 
the  majority.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  the  opinion 
of  any  living  majority  existing  at  this  moment ;  but  the 


FINE  ARTS.  105 

opinion  and  belief  that  has  come  down  to  us  through 
the  generations,  gathering  strength  as  it  comes. 

For  instance,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Shak- 
speare  is  more  appreciated,  more  admired,  more  stud- 
ied, in  these  days  than  he  was  in  his  own  time  (some 
two  centuries  and  a  half  ago),  or  than  he  has  been  in 
any  of  the  intermediate  years  between  then  and  now. 
In  his  lifetime  the  great  world  seems  to  have  regarded 
him  merely  as  an  actor  and  playwright  of  some  vivacity. 
His  plays  kept  the  stage,  it  is  true ;  but  up  to  the  pres- 
ent century  they  were  largely  remodelled,  corrected, 
and  cut  down  by  any  ignorant  manager  who  had  occa- 
sion for  them,  and  even  literary  men  of  repute  re-wrote 
and  modified  and  "  improved "  them.  But  all  the 
while  Shakspeare's  hold  on  the  hearts  of  his  country- 
men grew  and  grew;  his  works  became  known,  ad- 
mired, discussed,  translated  in  Germany,  in  France, 
—  a  whole  Shakspearian  literature  has  grown  up  both 
there  and  here,  —  and  so  dear  and  familiar  have  his 
writings  become,  that  wherever  the  Englishman  wan- 
ders, in  whatever  remote  and  unfriended  region,  his 
Shakspeare  and  his  Bible  go  with  him. 

This  is  what  I  mean  by  the  opinion  of  the  majority ; 
in  this  instance  applied  to  poetry,  perhaps  the  most 
ancient,  and  certainly  the  most  popular  and  familiar, 
of  the  fine  arts.  In  the  same  way  a  similar  pre-emi- 
nence being  given  by  the  universal  vote  to  great 
creators  in  other  arts,  —  such  as  Raphael  in  painting, 
Pheidias  in  sculpture,  Handel  in  music,  —  their  rep- 
utation waxes  more  and  more  as  the  years  roll  on, 


106  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

their  claims  to  excellence  growing  ever  more  fully  un- 
derstood. 

So  do  the  best  and  greatest  survive,  and  not  only 
withstand  all  shocks  of  time  and  change,  but  seem  to 
grow  the  greater  for  them,  because  of  their  strength 
of  unconquerable  beauty.  "  No  art  that  has  been 
considered  admirable  for  ages  can  be  worthless ;  all 
erroneous  opinion  is  inconstant,  and  all  ungrounded 
opinion  transitory."  There  is  a  vast  variety  of  opinion 
in  the  world  respecting  works  of  art  that  are  but  mid- 
dling, but  only  one  about  the  best  or  the  worst.  The 
world  may  differ  as  to  the  exact  degree  of  merit  pos- 
sessed by  Landseer's  lions  in  Trafalgar  Square  ;  but  it 
has  only  one  opinion  about  the  Venus  of  Melos,  and 
only  one  about  the  Temple  Bar  griffin. 

So  much  for  generally  accepted  opinion  as  regards 
the  beauty  of  works  of  art :  now  to  come  to  our  own 
personal  individual  opinion  or  feeling.  We  all  know 
what  it  is  to  be  impressed,  to  be  struck,  to  be  carried 
out  of  ourselves,  by  the  beauty  of  a  person,  of  a  natural 
scene,  of  a  character  in  a  book  or  in  actual  life.  If 
we  take  any  real  interest  in  our  own  sensations,  we  shall 
be  tempted  to  analyze  them,  to  try  to  find  out  what 
it  is  in  the  thing  that  so  moves  us.  In  a  natural  scene, 
it  may  be  sense  of  space,  beauty  of  color,  impression 
of  peace  and  repose  at  the  end  of  a  day.  In  a  per- 
son, it  may  be  consistently  elevated  conduct  or  aims, 
or  cheerfulness  of  spirit,  or  grace  of  demeanor,  or 
frequent  changes  of  expression,  or  delicate  features 
and  coloring.  At  all  events,  there  is  some  quality, 


FINE  ARTS.  lO/ 

some  virtue,  in  that  person  or  scene,  which  produces 
that  pleasurable  impression  of  which  the  origin  may 
be  found  if  we  inquire  closely  enough.  As  we  make, 
and  respond  to,  the  self-addressed  questionings,  we 
find  our  sensibilities,  our  perceptions,  growing  keener 
and  deeper,  our  experience  of  life  wider  and  more 
delightful.  And  by  means  of  this  kind  can  we  learn 
a  true  appreciation  of  the  excellent  in  works  of  art. 
Their  greatness  cannot  be  expected  to  descend  to  us  : 
we  must  rise  to  it.  A  part  only  of  a  great  work  may 
please  us  at  first ;  if  this  is  dwelt  on  and  studied  by 
degrees,  we  shall  find  ourselves  capable  of  appreciating 
the  whole.  Mr.  Pater  says,  "  What  is  important,  then, 
is  not  that  the  critic  "  (or  the  person  of  taste,  we  may 
say)  "  should  possess  a  correct  abstract  definition  of 
beauty  for  the  intellect,  but  a  certain  kind  of  tempera- 
ment, —  the  power  of  being  deeply  moved  by  the  pres- 
ence of  beautiful  objects.  He  will  remember  always 
that  beauty  exists  in  many  forms.  To  him  all  periods, 
types,  schools  of  taste,  are  in  themselves  equal.  In  all 
ages  there  have  been  some  excellent  workmen,  and 
some  excellent  work  done."  Beauty  is  not  to  be  ex- 
plained ;  and  when  we  have  said  that  some  forms  and 
colors  are  agreeable,  while  others  are  disagreeable, 
we  have  said  all  we  can.  As  to  explaining  the  reason 
why  they  are  so,  that  is  impossible  :  we  cannot  explain 
the  reason  why  the  taste  of  sugar  is  agreeable  and 
the  taste  of  bitter  aloes  disagreeable.  But  he  who 
inquires  as  closely  as  possible  into  his  sensations  of 
pleasure  or  aversion  with  regard  to  matters  of  art, 


IO8  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

and  cultivates  his  faculties  to  the  utmost,  is  a  person 
of  taste. 

The  generally  accepted  type  of  beauty  in  natural 
things  alone  has  varied  much  in  the  different  periods 
of  the  world,  and  among  different  races  of  men.  Dif- 
ferent qualities,  both  of  mind  and  of  body,  are  admired 
at  different  stages  of  civilization. 

Personal  bravery,  for  instance,  —  a  man's  first  and 
most  necessary  endowment  in  times  of  perpetual  war- 
fare, —  becomes,  in  times  like  ours,  the  one  for  which 
there  is  least  occasion ;  and  we  may  know  a  man  from 
his  childhood  without  being  aware  whether  he  pos- 
sesses it  or  not.  Bodily  qualifications,  too,  have  their 
various  estimates.  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  says, 
in  his  "Travels  in  the  Cevennes,"  that  one  morning, 
seeing  his  landlady  combing  out  her  daughter's  hair, 
he  made  her  his  compliments  upon  its  beauty.  "  Oh, 
no,"  said  the  mother,  "  it  is  not  so  beautiful  as  it  ought 
to  be.  Look,  it  is  too  fine."  The  Chinese,  at  the 
centre  of  Eastern  civilization,  admire  a  diminutive 
and  distorted  foot;  the  English  and  French,  at  the 
centre  of  Western  civilization,  admire  a  diminutive 
and  distorted  waist ;  a  certain  race  of  Indians  culti- 
vate from  infancy  a  flattened  and  elongated  head :  it 
is  all,  as  we  say,  a  matter  of  taste.  Still  the  more 
reasonable  and  enlightened  minds  of  modern  times 
may  be  supposed  to  have  reached  a  definite  standard 
in  such  things  as  these,  while  there  may  still  be  differ- 
ences of  opinion  in  matters  of  more  delicate  variation 
in  colors  and  shapes. 


FINE  ARTS.  109 

It  has  been  said  that  no  race  01  man  bred  in  wild 
country  ever  enjoys  landscape.  It  is  a  pleasure  that 
belongs  to  modern  times,  to  highly  civilized  nations, 
and  to  cultivated  minds.  A  comparison  of  ancient 
with  modern  literature  has  been  made,  to  prove  that 
among  the  ancients  the  feeling  for  natural  scenery  was 
vague  and  dim.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  art  of 
landscape-painting  is  of  modern  origin.  An  untutored, 
undeveloped  nature,  like  that  of  the  child  or  the  sav- 
age, is  quite  insensible  to  the  charm  of  a  beautiful 
landscape.  In  the  first  place,  they  have  no  perception 
of  the  relations  of  space,  —  as  the  child  cries  for  the 
moon,  having  no  idea  that  it  is  more  inaccessible  than 
any  other  round  ball.  But  among  ourselves  in  modern 
days,  what  taste,  what  enjoyment,  is  so  universal  as  that 
which  the  beauty  of  nature  inspires? 

Scenes  of  the  English  coast,  cliff  and  headland  and 
bay,  multiform  in  shape  and  color,  with  the  mystery 
of  the  sea  about  and  within  them ;  the  beauty  and 
terror  of  Alpine  heights  and  mountains  of  snow  and 
fire ;  of  long  sandy  flats,  with  only  a  sluggish  canal- 
boat  and  lazily  moving  horses  to  break  the  straight 
lines ;  of  the  moorland,  full  of  the  sense  of  light  and 
air  and  space,  with  something  of  wildness,  of  desola- 
tion ;  and  of  an  English  inland  home,  — 

"  Gray  twilight  poured 
On  dewy  pastures,  dewy  trees 
Softer  than  sleep,  —  all  things  in  order  stored 
A  haunt  of  ancient  peace,"  — 

such  pictures  as  these,  laid  up  in  the  memory  to  last 


IIO  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

long  after  the  delightful  experience  of  the  moment  is 
past,  we  feel  to  be  among  the  best  gifts  of  life. 

And  when  we  are  among  such  scenes  as  these,  we 
long  to  fix  them  by  some  more  definite  hand  than  that 
of  the  "  great  artist  Memory."  We  write  our  descrip- 
tion, we  turn  our  sonnet,  we  take  out  our  sketching- 
materials.  So  at  the  sight  of  a  beautiful  person  there 
is  always  some  one  found  to  remark,  "  He  or  she 
ought  to  be  painted."  This  is  the  universal  natural 
instinct :  we  perceive,  appreciate,  and  admire  the 
beauty  of  a  person,  a  natural  scene,  a  character,  a 
noble  action ;  and  we  long  to  give  expression  to  our 
sense  of  that  beauty,  to  make  it  our  own,  by  fixing  it 
in  some  permanent  form,  to  turn  it  into  a  picture,  a 
statue,  a  poem.  "  All  men  have  an  irrepressible  incli- 
nation for  works  of  art."  Seeing,  then,  that  we  are 
possessed  of  these  impulses,  let  us  take  care  they  find 
a  fitting  direction,  not  necessarily  in  the  production  of 
works  of  art,  for  the  special  gifts  are  rare,  but  in  the 
appreciation  of  them.  "  It  is  in  the  power  of  every 
one,  with  care  and  time,  to  form  a  just  judgment  of 
the  relative  merits  of  works  of  art.  To  arrive  at  this, 
no  peculiar  powers  of  mind  are  required,  no  sympathy 
with  particular  feelings,  nothing  which  every  one  of 
ordinary  intellect  does  not  in  some  degree  possess,  — 
powers,  namely,  of  observation  and  intelligence,  which 
by  cultivation  may  be  brought  to  a  high  degree  of 
perfection  and  acuteness." 

In  spite  of  the  almost  universally  expressed  admira- 
tion of  nature,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  ignorance  and 


FINE  ARTS.  Ill 

want  of  observation  regarding  its  external  facts. 
"  Men,"  says  Ruskin,  "'  pre-occupied  with  business  or 
care,  receive  from  nature  merely  the  inevitable  sensa- 
tions of  blueness,  redness,  light,  darkness,  etc."  He 
also  brings  forward,  as  a  proof  of  the  common  want 
of  observation,  that  people  usually  speak  of  the  Italian 
sky  as  being  blue  and  clear,  whereas  in  reality  it  is 
duller  and  grayer  than  ours,  and  distinguished  only  by 
repose,  tone,  warmth  ;  and  the  feeling  these  produce 
in  people's  minds  is  translated  by  them  wrongly  as 
blueness  and  clearness. 

There  is  occasional  incapacity  in  the  eye  for  distin- 
guishing and  receiving  pleasure  from  forms  and  colors, 
as  there  is  occasional  incapacity  in  the  ear  for  distin- 
guishing and  appreciating  notes  and  musical  sounds. 
So  that  it  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  that,  in  order 
to  the  complete  enjoyment  of  works  of  art,  the  bodily 
senses  should  not  only  be  in  good  order,  but  sharpened 
and  refined  by  cultivation.  That  much  may  be  done 
in  this  direction,  is  clear  to  every  one  who  has  prac- 
tised with  any  degree  of  intelligence  the  arts  of  music 
and  drawing,  the  best  things  that  appeal  to  the  senses 
of  sight  and  hearing ;  and  as  these  senses  are  capable 
of  a  higher  pleasure  than  the  other  senses,  so  no  one 
can  be  accused  of  intemperance  in  the  enjoyments 
belonging  to  them.  Sensitiveness  to  a  wrong  note,  to 
a  badly  tuned  instrument,  an  ill-interpreted  passage,  as 
well  as  quick  perception  of  a  crooked  line,  a  clumsy 
curve,  and  bad  perspective,  —  this  sensitiveness,  this 
perception,  by  the  practice  of  music  and  drawing, 


112  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

become  keener  and  quicker  —  nay,  are  often  called 
into  existence  —  by  such  cultivation  of  the  ear  and 
the  eye ;  and  so  with  the  corresponding  sensations 
of  pleasure  in  correctness,  in  tunefulness,  in  grace,  in 
harmony  Again,  in  drawing  any  object,  indeed,  we 
often  feel  that  we  are  really  seeing  it  for  the  first  time, 
and  that  there  are  qualities  of  form  and  color  in  it 
that  else  we  should  never  have  discovered  ;  and  if  by 
such  cultivation  of  the  eye  we  learn  to  see  truly  the 
facts  of  nature,  we  shall  by  the  same  means  find  our- 
selves greatly  assisted  in  understanding  the  aims  of 
Art,  less  familiar  and  more  intangible  as  they  are  ;  and 
bringng  mental  qualifications  to  the  aid  of  the  senses, 
—  powers  of  reflection,  memory,  imagination,  —  we 
shall  be  properly  equipped  for  the  judgment  and 
appreciation  of  the  fine  arts. 

The  fine  arts  fall  naturally  into  two  groups.  One 
group  consisting  of  those  arts  whose  productions  cor- 
respond to  real  objects,  they  may  be  called  imitative 
arts,  —  poetry,  painting,  sculpture.  The  second  group 
consisting  of  those  which  belong  in  part  to  science, 
as  having  mathematical  relations,  —  these  are  music 
and  architecture. 

Poetry  and  music  only  belong  to  my  subject  by  way 
of  illustration :  they,  being  built  up  of  sounds,  not 
sights,  of  words  and  notes,  not  form  and  color,  appeal 
to  a  set  of  outward  perceptions  different  from  those  to 
which  the  plastic  arts  —  as  painting,  sculpture,  and 
architecture  have  been  called  —  appeal.  Still,  as  I 
believe,  the  essence,  the  soul,  of  all  of  these,  is  the 


FINE  ARTS.  113 

same.  Writers  have  amused  themselves  with  fanciful 
definitions,  such  as  calling  painting  a  dumb  poem, 
and  poetry  a  speaking  picture,  architecture  frozen 
music,  and  the  like.  Such  sayings  may  perhaps  help 
us  to  realize  better  the  analogy  that  really  exists 
among  the  arts,  and  the  identity  of  the  spirit  ani- 
mating them  all ;  but  each  of  them  has,  none  the  less, 
its  especial  province,  and  cannot  justly  encroach  upon 
or  usurp  the  function  of  any  other. 

Now,  as  to  the  first  group,  the  arts  that  correspond 
to  real  objects,  —  poetry,  painting,  sculpture.  Let  us 
consider  for  a  moment  poetry.  The  materials  of 
Poetry  are  words;  and  by  means  of  these  she  deals 
with  man  and  the  material  world,  with  natural  outward 
beauty,  and  with  human  thoughts,  feelings,  emotions, 
and  in  so  doing  has  to  reject  the  commonplace,  the 
ignoble,  the  trite,  the  prosaic.  Poetry,  in  describing 
"  the  clang  of  arms,  the  battle  roar,"  leaves  out  de- 
tails, strategical  dispositions,  and  statistics  generally ; 
so  that,  if  we  want  a  satisfactory  account  from  an 
historical  or  a  military  point  of  view,  we  must  turn  to 
a  different  chronicler.  Not  that  the  poetical  view  is 
false,  but  it  is  different:  the  rush  of  melodiously  for- 
cible words  paint  the  glow,  the  ardor  of  combat,  the 
glory  of  victor}',  that  are  certainly  part  of  the  truth, 
but  the  part  that  belongs  to  the  imagination;  and 
that  part  the  sober  chronicler  leaves  alone,  busying 
himself  with  making  out  the  lesser  details,  the  actual 
facts,  veracity,  not  beauty,  being  his  aim.  Let  me 
give  an  example  of  what  I  mean ;  it  shall  be  from 
Shakespeare :  — 


114  LECTURES  ON  ART, 

"Many  a  time  has  banished  Norfolk  fought 
For  Jesu  Christ  in  glorious  Christian  field, 
Streaming  the  ensign  of  the  Christian  Cross 
Against  black  Pagans,  Turks,  and  Saracens ; 
And,  toiled  with  works  of  war,  retired  himself 
To  Italy ;  and  there  at  Venice  gave 
His  body  to  that  pleasant  country's  earth, 
And  his  pure  soul  unto  his  captain  Christ, 
Under  whose  colors  he  had  fought  so  long." 

Think  how  this  would  stand  in  a  biographical  dic- 
tionary, or  a  dry  paragraph  of  history.  "  The  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  banished  by  King  Richard  II.  in  such  a 
year,  joined  the  Crusades,  and,  after  so  many  years  of 
hard  fighting,  retired  to  Venice,  where  he  died  in 
such  a  year  at  a  certain  specified  age."  But  the  way 
in  which  the  poet  tells  the  story,  presenting  only  the 
poetical  side  of  it,  is  at  once  felt  to  be  more  delightful, 
more  valuable  than  the  other,  though  dates  and  figures 
are  left  out.  This  is  the  fine  art  of  poetry,  which  in 
dealing  with  real  objects,  actual  circumstances,  with  a 
fine  instinct  rejects  the  prosaic,  and  fixing  in  the 
mind  the  ideal,  spiritual  side  of  things,  gives  us  an 
impression,  shows  us  a  view,  that  we  should  never 
have  felt  or  seen  for  ourselves,  but  which,  when  made 
to  see  or  feel,  we  perfectly  understand  and  delight  in. 
Or,  if  we  have  something  of  the  poetical  imagination, 
it  is  the  gift  of  expression  that  is  wanting ;  and  it  is 
the  gift  of  expression  in  various  forms  that  makes  the 
poet,  the  painter,  the  sculptor.  There  is  a  mechani- 
cal part,  a  technical  knowledge,  belonging  to  each  of 
the  fine  arts ;  but  the  possession  of  them  alone  does 


FINE  ARTS.  115 

not  constitute  the  artist.  The  rules  of  versification, 
and  knowledge  of  the  sounds  and  quantities  of  sylla- 
bles and  the  correct  use  and  management  of  words  — 
these  are  the  mechanical  parts  of  poetry.  With  these 
the  poet  works,  as  the  painter  with  laws  of  perspec- 
tive, rules  of  anatomy,  and  acquaintance  with  the 
nature  and  effect  of  colors  :  as  the  sculptor  by  the 
rules  of  anatomy  too,  and  skill  of  hand,  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  working  of  clay  and  stone  and  marble. 
These  things  are  the  technical,  the  mechanical  side  of 
Art ;  and,  though  perfection  in  them  is  necessary,  yet 
it  is  not  enough  to  make  the  poet,  the  painter,  the 
sculptor :  he  must  have  the  incommunicable  gift  ot 
genius  as  well. 

Skill  in  words  alone,  without  genius,  produces  long, 
dry  descriptions,  moral  dissertations,  and  detailed  his- 
tories, only  differing  from  prose  by  being  cut  into 
lengths  and  having  a  certain  number  of  rhyming  syl- 
lables. Such  are  Philips's  epic  poem  "Cider-Making," 
or  Armstrong's  on  the  "  Art  of  Preserving  Health." 

"  I  low  best  the  fickle  fabric  to  support 
Of  mortal  man  ;  in  healthful  body  how 
A  healthful  mind  the  longest  to  maintain." 

This  sounds  sufficiently  prosaic.  In  painting,  this 
same  uninspired  industry  or  skill  produces  literal  rep- 
resentations of  actual  scenes  and  persons,  in  which 
every  detail  of  feature  and  dress  is  exactly  reproduced, 
but  no  new  ideas  are  suggested,  —  fruit  with  quite  a 
real  bloom,  and  flies  and  dewdrops  ready  to  fly  or  fall. 


Il6  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

And  in  sculpture  it  results  in  imitations  of  veils  over 
faces,  of  buttons,  of  tassels,  lace  and  frills,  and  the 
texture  of  hair  and  drapery. 

The  more  we  study  great  poetry,  and  penetrate  its 
spirit,  the  better  shall  we  understand  what  belongs  to 
the  great  in  other  arts.  It  has  over  and  over  been 
observed,  that  it  is  an  apparent  accident  which  decides 
a  natural  genius  whether  to  become  a  poet,  a  painter. 
or  a  sculptor ;  and  there  are  many  instances  in  which 
excellence  in  all  has  been  united.  Michael  Angelo 
was  all  these ;  and  Leonardo  was  a  poet,  a  musician, 
a  sculptor,  an  architect,  as  well  as  a  painter.  And 
often,  in  our  own  time,  one  has  occasion  to  observe 
that  the  best  artists  in  any  one  of  the  arts  have  the 
greatest  understanding  of,  and  insight  into,  all  the  rest. 
One  creative  spirit,  one  lofty  range  of  imagination, 
thought,  and  feeling,  animates  them  all :  it  is  only  the 
mode  of  expression  that  varies.  Each  different  mode 
of  expression  demands,  of  course,  different  subjects 
and  different  treatment ;  but  the  spirit,  the  inspiration, 
are  the  same.  Shakespeare,  Raphael,  Pheidias, — 
each  had  for  his  original  subjects  and  models  only 
literal  circumstances,  actual  people ;  and  each,  in  his 
several  manner,  delivered  his  message  of  beauty  to 
the  world.  The  medical  poem  I  quoted  above,  the 
picture  of  the  "  Derby  Day,"  the  monster  at  Temple 
Bar,  deliver  no  message  of  beauty;  they  have  none 
to  deliver.  They  would  have  been  much  more  wel- 
come and  appropriate  in  the  form  of  a  doctor's  pre- 
scription, a  caricature  in  Punch,  or  a  macadamized 


FINE  ARTS.  II/ 

road,  than  in  their  usurping  of  the  forms  of  fine  art 
without  its  spirit. 

I  have  said  that  these  three  arts  —  poetry,  paint- 
ing, sculpture  —  correspond  to  real  objects,  and  thus 
may  be  called  imitative  arts.  Their  object  is  indeed 
the  imitation  of  Nature,  but  not  the  exact  imitation. 
In  each  of  these  three,  clever  direct  imitations  have 
been  produced ;  but  we  can  tell,  by  the  kind  of  admi- 
ration we  feel  for  them,  that  the  imitation  is  not  work 
of  a  high  kind.  Southey's  "  Falls  at  Lodore,"  Poe's 
"  Bells,"  are  instances  that  occur  to  me  in  poetry.  At 
the  first  reading  they  draw  attention,  they  excite  curi- 
osity and  surprise,  and  indeed  admiration.  But  for 
what  qualities?  For  ingenuity,  for  command  of  lan- 
guage, for  jingle  of  rhymes,  for  clever  reproduction  in 
words  of  natural  sounds.  And  there  the  admiration 
must  end  :  it  is  short-lived  ;  it  has  no  lasting  food  to 
subsist  upon.  I  do  not  say  that  these  instances  are 
bad,  and  ought  not  to  have  existed,  but  that  they  are 
not  poetry  in  any  high  sense ;  and  I  mention  them  to 
help  me  to  define  the  great  and  the  little  in  other  arts. 

It  is  generally  considered  the  highest,  and  indeed 
the  only  legitimate  praise  that  can  be  bestowed  on  a 
painting,  to  say  that  it  is  exactly  like  Nature.  And  in 
ancient  times,  before  the  art  of  painting,  properly  so 
called,  was  understood  and  practised,  an  idea  seems 
to  have  prevailed,  that  the  best  picture  was  the  one 
that  most  completely  deceived  the  senses.  Witness 
the  stories  that  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  painters 
of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  —  of  Zeuxis,  who 


Il8  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

painted  a  boy  carrying  a  basket  of  fruit,  the  fruit  being 
so  well  imitated  that  the  birds  came  and  pecked  at  it ; 
and  when  the  public  applauded,  the  painter  said, 
"  Had  the  boy  been  as  well  painted  as  the  fruit,  the 
birds  would  not  have  dared  to  touch  it : "  of  Parrha- 
sius,  the  rival  of  Zeuxis,  who  was  asked  to  withdraw 
the  curtain  and  show  his  picture,  when  the  curtain 
turned  out  to  be  the  picture  itself,  and  Zeuxis  acknowl- 
edged himself  surpassed,  since  he  had  only  deceived 
birds,  but  Parrhasius,  men.  These  stories,  childish  as 
they  seem,  go  to  prove  that  close  imitation  of  Nature, 
were  it  the  legitimate  object  in  painting,  is  only  possi- 
ble with  regard  to  small  and  insignificant  things.  Fruit 
may  be  closely  imitated,  but  not  a  tree.  Flowers  may 
be  so  painted  as  to  deceive  the  eye,  and  make  one 
think  for  a  moment  that  they  are  real :  not  so  a  pas- 
ture. Cut-glass  may  be  imitated,  but  not  a  rainbow  ; 
a  dew-drop,  but  not  a  waterfall ;  a  curtain,  but  not  the 
sky ;  an  insect,  but  not  the  sacred  human  form.  Art 
in  its  highest  form  expresses  nothing  mean,  nothing 
transitory.  For  one  moment  we  are  pleased  when  we 
see  a  fly  on  a  picture,  and  then  find  that  it  is  a 
painted  one,  and  that  we  cannot  brush  it  away :  but 
the  little  pleasure  is  gone  in  a  moment ;  not  so  the  fly, 
which  remains  to  become  a  weariness.  The  small  sur- 
prise can  never  be  repeated  :  it  is  a  juggling  trick  that 
has  been  explained.  If  in  poetry  or  fiction  (which  is 
a  kind  of  poetry)  we  wanted  the  same  close  following 
of  Nature  which  most  people  demand  in  a  picture,  we 
should  choose  verbatim  reports  of  moving  scenes  that 


FINE  ARTS.  119 

have  actually  taken  place :  these  might  be  raw  mate- 
rial for  the  poet's  imagination  to  work  on,  but  they 
could  not  be  poetry  till  he  transformed  them,  adding 
some  things  and  leaving  out  others.  A  photograph, 
in  like  manner,  is  a  closer  following  of  Nature  than 
any  picture  can  be  (save  in  respect  of  color;  but  with 
that  deficiency,  as  we  are  now  told,  science  is  prepared 
to  do  away)  ;  and  the  photographic  view  or  portrait 
contains  the  elements,  the  material,  of  a  picture  :  but 
for  want  of  selection,  combination,  composition,  and, 
above  all,  for  want  of  a  human  mind  and  soul  acting 
on  the  materials,  it  is  not  a  picture.  In  the  same  way 
a  cast  of  the  human  form,  or  of  any  part  of  it,  is  and 
must  be  absolutely,  almost  unpleasantly,  truthful ;  but 
in  a  piece  of  sculpture  we  want  something  more,  and, 
I  may  say,  something  less,  —  we  want  no  clumsiness, 
no  harshness,  no  angularity,  no  awkwardness,  but 
grace,  strength,  beauty.  The  elements  of  these  are  in 
the  human  form  :  it  is  the  sculptor's  art  to  find  them 
out,  to  draw  them  forth,  and  to  show  us  an  embodi- 
ment of  them.  Just  as  we  expect  the  poet  to  discover 
and  express  for  us  thoughts  and  feeling  and  ideas  that 
we  should  not  have  discovered  or  expressed  for  our- 
selves, so  we  should  expect  the  painter  to  select,  to 
bring  together  in  a  picture,  beauties  and  hidden  effects 
we  are  not  ourselves  capable  of  seeing  in  Nature.  A 
picture  should  be  a  revelation,  not  a  reproduction.  I 
do  not  say  that  a  painting  should  not  be  natural,  but 
that  it  should  not  seek  to  directly  imitate  Nature. 
"  Realization  to  the  mind  does  not  necessitate  decep- 


120  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

tion  to  the  eye."  We  should  be  made  by  the  painter 
to  realize  vividly  the  scenes,  the  persons,  he  depicts. 
But  a  literal  representation,  were  it  possible,  is  not 
desirable  :  a  looking-glass  would  do  as  much  for  us, 
and  we  want  the  artist  to  do  something  more.  "  His 
picture,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  may  be  likened  to  a  glass 
indeed,  but  to  a  transparent  glass  of  sweet  and  strange 
color,  that  gives  new  tones  to  what  we  see  through  it, 
and  of  strength  and  clearness  to  let  us  se£  more  than 
we  could  ourselves,  and  bring  Nature  up  to  us  and 
near  to  us." 

In  pictures  we  have  what  is  like  the  form  of  man, 
but  in  sculpture  we  have  the  form  itself;  yet,  as  an 
art,  it  seems  more  ideal,  more  removed  from  ordinary 
life,  than  painting.  Details  fitly  represented  and  ac- 
cepted in  painting  seem  mean  or  superfluous  in  sculp- 
ture. The  most  ordinary  worker  in  stone  must  feel 
this.  The  stone  is  so  severe,  so  lasting,  so  uncom- 
promising, that  a  carver  in  it  must  indeed  be  strongly 
determined  to  be  wrong  who  produces  a  "Veiled 
Vestal,"  —  that  kneeling  figure,  swathed  face,  and  all 
that  I  can  remember  at  the  '62  Exhibition,  so  deftly 
carved  that  it  looked  almost  like  a  real  veil;  won- 
derful skill,  all  worse  than  wasted,  for  who  would  really 
think  a  veil  more  interesting  than  a  face  ?  The  sculp- 
tor must  have  had  nothing  to  express,  to  communi- 
cate, but  an  idea  of  his  own  cleverness  :  that  was  his 
notion  of  a  message  of  beauty.  If  this  sort  of  thing 
is  wanted,  we  can  have  it  all,  and  more,  at  Madame 
Tussaud's.  The  true  task  of  sculpture  is  to  present 


FINE  ARTS.  121 

the  form  of  man  in  full  natural  beauty,  and  this  can 
be.  done  only  by  showing  that  form  unclothed  ;  or, 
if  drapery  is  used,  it  is  not  to  conceal  the  body  or 
to  disfigure  its  outline  and  structure,  but  in  its  folds 
to  harmonize  with  the  form  and  organization,  and, 
with  grace  of  arrangement,  clinging  to  it,  and  receiv- 
ing right  direction,  just  as  in  music  the  instrumental 
accompaniment  follows  the  voice.  Finally,  to  quote 
from  Mr.  Pater,  "The  base  of  all  artistic  genius  is  the 
power  of  conceiving  humanity  in  a  new,  striking,  re- 
joicing way,  —  of  putting  a  happy  world  of  its  own 
creation  in  place  of  the  meaner  world  of  common 
days."  "Art  is  Art,"  says  Goethe,  "  precisely  because 
it  is  not  Nature." 

To  come  to  the  second  group,  —  those  arts  that 
belong  in  part  to  Science,  —  music  and  architecture  ; 
music  being  based  on  the  science  of  harmony,  and 
architecture  on  the  mathematical  and  mechanical  sci- 
ences. Music,  composed  and  produced  in  accordance 
with  the  fixed  relations  between  musical  sounds,  ap- 
peals entirely,  while  poetry  only  appeals  partly,  to  the 
ear :  it  expresses  what  cannot  be  expressed  by  words 
or  color  or  form.  In  attempting  to  describe  the  sort 
of  pleasure  one  feels  in  listening  to  a  Beethoven  sym- 
phony, for  instance,  one  is  at  a  loss  for  words :  the 
memory,  the  imagination,  seem  to  be  reached  by  some 
dim,  unfrequented  road.  We  seem  to  remember  a 
mysterious  something,  to  imagine  something  formless, 
delicious,  intangible :  the  music  ceases,  the  sensation 
is  gone,  and  can  only  be  recovered  the  next  time  the 


122  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

notes  are  heard.  Successive  sounds,  which  we  call 
melody,  gather  definiteness  of  meaning  from  the  words 
to  which  they  are  often  joined ;  but  the  simultaneous 
sounds  of  harmony  alone  never  give  up  their  secret, 
even  though  we  know  every  contrivance  by  which  they 
belong  to  each  other  and  to  their  place.  A  certain 
amount  of  imitation  of  natural  sounds  seems  to  belong 
to  Music  in  some  of  her  more  definite  moods ;  but,  as 
in  the  other  arts,  it  can  only  be  appropriate  when  the 
subject  is  mean  and  trivial.  The  purely  imitative  parts 
of  Beethoven's  Pastoral  Symphony  can  never  be  the 
most  admirable,  nor  can  that  composition  take  the 
highest  place  among  the  master's  writings.  I  will 
quote  a  passage  from  a  well-known  critic  concerning 
this  work :  "  At  the  end  of  the  second  movement, 
Beethoven  allowed  himself  most  unwisely,  and  merely 
to  please  a  lady  admirer,  to  add  a  passage  of  direct 
imitation  of  the  nightingale,  quail,  and  cuckoo,  not 
originally  contemplated,  and  which  is  a  blot  on  an 
exquisite  composition ;  and  in  the  storm  movement, 
parts  of  which  are  magnificently  and  poetically  sug- 
gestive, he  has  written  in  one  place  a  series  of  rapid 
groups  of  four  notes  for  the  double-basses  against  five 
for  the  violoncello  (to  be  played  in  the  same  time)  ; 
so  that  no  two  notes  are  sounded  together,  and  a 
confused  rumble  of  sound  is  produced.  The  passage 
passes  quickly  over  in  performance,  and  those  who 
do  not  know  of  the  device  would  perhaps  not  notice 
it ;  but  it  is  a  most  dangerous  precedent,  and  a  method 
of  treatment  which  most  distinctly  is  not  music."  We 


FINE  ARTS.  123 

instinctively  feel  that  Music  is  greatest  when  least 
translatable,  and  when  she  appeals  to  moods  rather 
than  ideas,  and  suggests  rather  than  asserts  them. 

Architecture,  the  other  art  belonging  to  this  second 
group,  —  the  art  of  designing  and  executing  buildings 
of  all  sorts,  —  is,  like  music,  a  science  as  well  as  an 
art ;  and  the  artist  in  it,  besides  possessing  the  gift  of 
genius,  must  be  something  of  a  mathematician,  me- 
chanic, chemist,  philosopher  as  well,  and  Mr.  Ruskin 
would  have  him  to  be  a  painter  and  sculptor  too. 

He  says  (and  I  think  his  observations  will  help 
to  illustrate  something  of  what  I  have  been  saying), 
"The  gifts  which  distinctively  mark  the  artist  are 
those  of  sympathy  and  imagination.  .  .  .  We  all  have 
a  general  and  sufficient  idea  of  imagination,  and  of  its 
work  with  our  hands  and  in  our  hearts  ;  we  understand 
it,  I  suppose,  as  the  imaging  or  picturing  of  new  things 
in  our  thoughts ;  and  we  always  have  an  involuntary 
respect  for  this  power,  wherever  we  can  recognize  it, 
acknowledging  it  to  be  a  greater  power  than  manipula- 
tion, or  calculation,  or  observation,  or  any  other  human 
faculty. 

"  If  we  see  an  old  woman,"  he  says,  "  spinning  at 
the  fireside,  and  distributing  her  thread  dexterously 
from  the  distaff,  we  respect  her  for  her  manipulation ; 
if  we  ask  her  how  much  she  expects  to  make  in  a  year, 
and  she  answers  quickly,  we  respect  her  for  her  calcu- 
lation ;  if  she  is  watching  at  the  same  time  that  none 
of  her  grandchildren  fall  into  the  fire,  we  respect  her 
for  her  observation :  yet,  for  all  this,  she  may  still  be 


124  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

a  commonplace  old  woman  enough.  But  if  she  is  all 
the  time  telling  her  grandchildren  a  fairy-tale  out  of 
her  head,  we  praise  her  for  her  imagination,  and  say 
she  must  be  rather  a  remarkable  old  woman." 

Precisely  in  like  manner,  if  an  architect  does  his 
working-drawing  well,  we  praise  him  for  his  manipula- 
tion ;  if  he  keeps  closely  within  his  contract,  we  praise 
him  for  his  honest  arithmetic  ;  if  he  looks  well  to  the 
laying  of  his  beams,  so  that  nobody  shall  drop  through 
the  floor,  we  praise  him  for  his  observation.  But  he 
must  somehow  tell  us  a  fairy-tale  out  of  his  head  be- 
side all  this,  else  we  cannot  praise  him  for  his  imagina- 
tion, or  speak  of  him  as  we  did  of  the  old  woman,  as 
being  in  any  wise  out  of  the  common  way,  a  rather 
remarkable  architect. 

A  mere  builder  with  a  due  understanding  of  propor- 
tion could  plan  and  carry  out  a  sufficiently  large  and 
commodious  house,  church,  public  hall,  to  contain  the 
family,  the  congregation,  the  assemblage  of  persons. 
But  from  the  days  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  men  have 
wanted  more,  —  some  sense  of  beauty,  of  sublimity, 
which  no  mere  builder  could  bring  about.  And  this 
is  the  fine  art  of  architecture. 

Now,  though,  as  I  believe,  the  art  of  every  period 
has  its  peculiar  beauty  and  fitness,  being  the  natural 
outcome  and  flower  of  the  higher  instincts  of  man,  yet 
there  have  been  times  in  his  history  when,  the  condi- 
tions and  surroundings  being  surpassingly  favorable  to 
its  growth,  some  one  of  the  arts  has  reached  appar- 
ently the  highest  pitch  of  perfection,  and  must  remain 


FINE  ARTS.  125 

an  example  and  a  study  to  all  succeeding  ages.  There 
have  been,  in  the  world's  lifetime,  several  blossoming 
times  of  architecture  and  of  poetry.  "The  essence  of 
a  style  in  architecture,  properly  so  called,  is  that  it 
should  be  practised  for  ages,  and  applied  to  all  pur- 
poses." So  there  have  been  Egyptian,  Greek,  Gothic, 
and  other  styles  in  architecture.  In  like  manner  there 
have  been  different  great  schools  of  poetry,  —  theGreek 
tragedy,  the  Elizabethan  drama,  the  Augustan  age,  and 
many  others.  But,  unlike  architecture  and  poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  and  music  have  each  had  but  one 
great  period.  Sculpture  takes  the  earliest  place,  and 
attains  its  highest  perfection  in  Greece  during  the  age 
of  Pheidias.  Next,  at  a  wide  interval,  comes  the  great 
period  of  painting  in  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  And  from  that  moment  the  art  of  music 
begins  to  gather  importance,  until  in  these  days  we 
find  ourselves  in  possession  of  the  best,  both  in  crea- 
tion and  execution. 

"  No  great  school,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  ever  yet  ex- 
isted which  had  not  for  primal  aim  the  representation 
of  some  natural  fact  as  truly  as  possible.  There  have 
only  yet  appeared  in  the  world  three  schools  of  per- 
fect Art,  —  schools,  that  is  to  say,  which  did  their  work 
as  well  as  it  seems  possible  to  do  it.  These  are  the 
Athenian  school  of  sculpture,  of  the  fifth  century  B.C., 
and  the  Florentine  and  Venetian  schools  of  painting, 
nearly  contemporaneous  with  each  other,  during  part 
of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  after  Christ. 
The  word  '  school  of  Art '  in  this  sense  must  be  taken 


126  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

to  mean  a  body  of  workers  with  one  original  genius,  or 
perhaps  more  than  one,  at  their  head,  —  a  genius  so 
vigorous,  so  full  of  strength  and  originality,  as  to  influ- 
ence those  workers,  and  inspire  them  with  his  own 
ideas,  compelling  them,  as  it  were,  to  work  in  accord- 
ance with  his  spirit." 

So  at  the  head  of  the  Athenian  school  stood  Phei- 
dias ;  and  his  aim,  and  that  of  his  fellow-workers,  was 
the  perfect  representation  of  the  human  body  in 
sculpture. 

At  the  head  of  the  Florentine  school  we  may  place 
either  Raphael,  or  Michael  Angelo,  or  Leonardo  ;  and 
their  aim  was  the  perfect  expression  of  human  charac- 
ter and  emotion  in  painting. 

At  the  head  of  the  Venetian  school  stand  Titian  and 
Paul  Veronese ;  and  their  object  was  the  representation 
in  painting  of  the  effects  of  color  and  shade  on  all 
things,  chiefly  on  the  human  form. 

A  vivid  idea,  a  fixed  notion,  of  these  three  schools 
and  their  characteristics,  must  always  be  a  valuable 
basis  on  which  to  build  a  better  and  larger  acquaint- 
ance with  the  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture  ; 
and  to  present  that  idea,  that  notion,  as  clearly  and 
plainly  as  I  can,  will  be  my  object  in  the  next  two 
lectures. 

For  the  present  I  will  ask  you  to  bear  them  in  mind, 
and  to  associate  each  of  them  with  one  of  three  works 
of  art  which  doubtless  you  have  all  either  seen  or  con- 
tinually heard  of, — the  "Venus"  of  Melos,  belonging 
to  the  Athenian  school  of  Pheidias ;  Raphael's  "  Dis- 


UalM-VEN  VS  •  CaR--WlNGLEsy.VICTOR.Yj 
or  •  MEUOS- 


FINE  ARTS.  129 

pute  of  the  Sacrament,"  '  of  the  Florentine  school ; 
and  Titian's  "  Flora,"  of  the  Venetian  school. 

And  first  the  "  Venus."  A  photograph  gives,  of 
course,  a  very  inadequate  idea  of  the  sculpture,  of 
which  the  original  is  in  the  Louvre.  I  remember  well 
when  I  saw  it  for  the  first  time.  I  seemed  all  at  once 
to  comprehend  what  sculpture  at  its  best  really  is.  A 
divine  grace  and  radiance  seemed  to  shine  forth  from 
this  beautiful  woman.  Though  the  sphere  on  which  she 
is  supposed  to  have  rested,  and  her  lovely  arms  with 
which  she  held  it,  are  gone,  one  feels  one's  self  still  in 
the  presence  of  a  charming,  dignified,  sweet  person- 
ality. To  my  mind,  she  is  the  Dea  certe,  the  real 
goddess,  the  true  Venus  of  the  highest  Pagan  ideal. 
Others,  such  as  the  Medicean  Venus  at  Florence,  and 
her  of  the  Capitoline  collection  at  Rome,  the  Venus  of 
the  Vatican,  —  these  may  be  almost  faultlessly  fair,  but 
in  them  there  is  something  of  falseness,  something  of 
frailty :  this  alone  is  the  perfect  goddess. 

Now  to  come  to  the  example  of  the  Florentine 
school,  —  the  "  Dispute  concerning  the  Sacrament," 
by  Raphael. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  year  1508  that  Ra- 
phael received  from  Pope  Julius  II.  a  commission  to 
adorn  the  splendid  rooms  of  the  Vatican  with  paint- 
ings. Three  of  these  rooms  and  a  great  hall  were 
painted  by  him  on  their  walls  and  vaulted  ceilings. 
The  paintings  on  the  four  walls  of  the  first  room  were 
to  have  for  subjects,  Theology,  Poetry,  Philosophy,  and 

1  See  p.  xo3. 


I3O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Jurisprudence,  —  the  chief  ideas  of  the  intellectual 
powers  of  that  day.  This,  the  so-called  "  Dispute  of 
the  Sacrament,"  is  the  Theology.  Above  the  glory 
of  the  triumphant  Church  sits  Christ,  its  builder  and 
maker,  enthroned  on  clouds,  and  on  his  countenance  a 
divine  mildness  and  mercy ;  by  his  side  are  the  Ma- 
donna, and  John  the  Baptist  pointing  to  him  as  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world ;  below  is  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  likeness  of  a  dove  ;  and  above  all  is  the  Godhead 
himself  in  a  glory  of  angels  ;  on  both  sides,  seated 
on  clouds,  are  the  godly  men  of  old,  —  the  prophets, 
priests,  kings,  apostles,  of  the  Bible  story.  Below, 
grouped  on  both  sides  of  an  altar  on  which  are  dis- 
played the  monstrance  and  the  consecrated  host,  are 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  bishops  and  teachers ;  and 
in  their  faces  and  figures  are  expressed,  with  complete 
truth,  every  variation  of  feeling  that  each  might  be  sup- 
posed to  have  at  such  a  time,  —  enthusiasm,  exalted  be- 
lief, concentrated  thought,  careful  investigation,  fervent 
devotion,  dispute,  and  doubt.  "  This  picture,"  says 
Mr.  Ruskm,  "  will  be  a  type  accepted  by  everybody, 
and  will  involve  no  possibly  questionable  points  :  the 
Germans  will  admit  it ;  the  English  academicians  will 
admit  it ;  and  the  English  purists  and  pre-Raphaelitcs 
will  admit  it.  Well,  there  you  have  the  truth  of  human 
expression  proposed  as  an  aim.  That  is  the  way  people 
look  when  they  feel  this  or  that,  when  they  have  this 
or  that  other  mental  character.  Are  they  devotional, 
thoughtful,  affectionate,  indignant,  or  inspired?  Are 
they  prophets,  saints,  priests,  or  kings  ?  —  then,  what- 


FINE  ARTS.  131 

soever  is  truly  thoughtful,  affectionate,  priestly,  kingly 
—  that  the  Florentine  school  tried  to  discern  and 
show ;  that  they  have  discerned  and  shown  ;  and  all 
their  greatness  is  first  fastened  in  their  aim  at  this  cen- 
tral truth,  —  the  open  expression  of  the  living  human 
soul." 

I  can  say  very  little  about  my  third  example,  —  the 
"  Flora  "  of  Titian,  of  the  Venetian  school,  whose  aim 
was  the  representation  of  color  and  shade,  —  for  the 
very  reason  that  these  qualities  cannot  fitly  be  repro- 
duced in  a  photograph  or  engraving.  Perhaps  some 
of  my  hearers  may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  have  seen  the 
original  in  the  Uffizi  Gallery  at  Florence  ;  and  nothing 
but  a  sight  of  the  original  can  give  a  just  idea  of  the 
glory  of  the  coloring,  the  tender  glow  of  the  lights,  and 
the  melting  depth  of  the  shades.  We  can  only  see 
from  the  photograph  that  this  is  a  master  portrait  of  a 
beautiful  woman,  with  a  kind  of  freedom  and  nobility 
in  her  face  and  figure.  Whatever  Titian  chose  to 
paint,  he  treated  in  this  large  and  healthful  style.  In 
my  lecture  on  Painting,  I  shall  try  to  describe  at  greater 
length  the  characteristics  of  this  Venetian  school,  and 
the  reasons  of  its  greatness. 

And  now  to  recapitulate.  I  have  sought  to  show 
you  that  the  aim  of  the  fine  arts  is  beauty  alone,  — 
beauty  physical,  intellectual,  spiritual ;  that  they  aim 
at  no  direct  material  utility,  though  as  a  moral  instru- 
ment of  elevating,  purifying,  enlightening  power,  they 
have  a  great  influence  in  the  world.  And  the  search 
after  and  understanding  of  beauty  is  to  be  promoted 


132  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

by  inquiring  into  the  reasons  of  the  general  verdict  of 
mankind  about  the  great  masterpieces  of  art,  and  also 
studying  and  cultivating  our  own  sensations  with  regard 
to  them. 

I  will  remind  you  that  the  fine  arts  are  separated 
into  two  groups  :  those  that  belong  to  Science  as  well 
as  to  Art,  —  music  and  architecture ;  and  those  whose 
object  is  the  imitation  of  Nature  alone,  —  poetry,  paint- 
ing, sculpture.  And  it  is  to  be  remembered  about 
these  last,  that,  though  their  object  is  imitation,  it  is  not 
exact  imitation  ;  and  it  is  well  to  keep  in  memory  this 
saying,  "  Realization  to  the  mind  does  not  necessitate 
deception  to  the  eye." 

Of  the  arts  thus  classified,  only  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture,  belong  to  my  present  subject.  They 
appeal,  through  the  eye,  exclusively  to  the  sense  of 
beauty;  and  any  practical  knowledge  of  any  part 
of  these  three  is  a  great  assistance  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  great  works  that  have  been  produced  by  painters, 
sculptors,  architects. 

And,  lastly,  I  have  briefly  characterized  the  three 
great  schools  of  perfect  Art :  — 

The  Athenian  school  of  sculpture. 

The  Florentine  school  of  expression  in  painting. 

The  Venetian  school  of  color  and  light  and  shade  in 
painting. 

These  will  be  my  subject  on  the  next  two  occasions. 

By  fixing  these  in  the  mind,  and  associating  with 
them  these  three  works  of  world-wide  renown,  a  sort 
of  framework  will  be  formed,  into  which  may  be  fitted 


FINE  ARTS.  133 

whatever  is  gained  by  later  knowledge  and  experience 
and  observation.  At  first  it  is  very  possible  that  we 
may  feel  ourselves  slow  to  perceive  what  are  the  tran- 
scendent beauties  of  these  things  which  all  the  world 
has  praised  ever  since  they  were  made ;  but  one  learns 
to  love  them  by  degrees,  and  to  value  them  far  more 
highly  than  the  transitory  art  of  the  day  that  will  per- 
ish with  it,  as  we  learn  to  love  Shakspeare  and  Bee- 
thoven. 

"  Nor  do  we  merely  feel  these  essences 
For  one  short  hour :  no,  even  as  the  trees 
That  whisper  round  a  temple  become  soon 
Dear  as  the  temple's  self,  so  does  the  moon, 
The  passion  poesy,  glories  infinite, 
Haunt  us  till  they  become  a  cheering  light 
Unto  our  souls,  and  bound  to  us  so  fast, 
That  whether  there  be  shine,  or  gloom  o'crcast, 
They  alway  must  be  with  us,  or  we  die." 


. 

»TEMPLE.»OF»POSEJDON» 


-q 


V.  — FINE  ART  —  SCULPTURE   AND  ARCHI- 
TECTURE. 

I  HAVE  placed  sculpture  and  architecture  together 
in  this  lecture,  because,  as  they  are  more  dependent 
on  each  other  than  is  the  case  with  any  other  two 
of  the  remaining  arts,  a  sketch  indicating  the  chief 
periods  and  characteristics  of  both  can  be  made  more 
comprehensive  than  by  treating  them  separately.  I 
am  only  too  sensible  how  meagre  such  a  sketch  must 
needs  be.  I  can  only  recur  to  my  former  words,  and 
repeat  that  my  aim  is  merely  to  make  a  beginning  of 
knowledge  and  interest  in  these  things,  in  the  minds 
of  those  in  whom  it  is  not  already  made  ;  to  construct 
'34 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       1 35 

a  framework,  however  slight,  into  which  those  who  are 
beginning  to  care  for  and  to  study  art  may  fit  what 
they  learn  and  observe. 

The  same  material  is  common  to  both  sculpture 
and  architecture,  —  stone,  clay,  wood,  and  various 
metals  being  used  in  both.  Both  are  subject  to  the 
same  laws  of  gravity :  the  works  of  both  require  a 
fixed  point  where  they  can  stand  securely  on  the  ground 
above  which  they  rise.  The  difference  between  the 
two  is  the  subject  of  their  works.  While  architecture 
deals  with  the  inorganic,  inanimate  substances  I  have 
just  named,  producing  buildings  and  monuments, — 
things  still  inorganic  and  inanimate,  —  sculpture,  deal- 
ing with  the  same  substances,  produces  images  of  or- 
ganic, animate  form ;  the  one,  by  statues,  groups,  and 
reliefs,  lending  her  aid  to  the  other  by  filling,  adorn- 
ing, and  enriching  pediment  and  arch,  niche  and 
column. 

As  I  have  said,  architecture  has  had  several  styles 
and  periods  of  excellence :  sculpture  only  one,  and 
that  one  the  school  of  Athens  under  Pheidias.  The 
arts,  however,  of  sculpture  and  architecture,  and  in 
fact  of  painting  too,  were  practised  and  carried  to 
great  excellence  in  much  earlier  times  among  the 
Egyptians.  The  beginnings  of  their  art  are  lost  in 
the  mists  of  antiquity ;  and,  the  earlier  its  date,  the 
greater  its  perfection.  In  this  respect  Egyptian  art 
differs  in  a  marked  manner  from  the  art  of  other  na- 
tions of  which  we  can  trace  the  origin.  The  general 
rule  is,  that,  as  a  nation  rises  into  greater  freedom  and 


136  LECTURES  OAT  ART. 

power,  the  arts  rise  with  it ;  and  that  the  time  when 
their  highest  perfection  is  reached  seems  to  be  the 
signal  for  the  nation's  fall  in  power,  and  with  that  fall 
their  art  is  dragged  down  and  debased.  But  in  Egypt, 
in  the  fourteenth  century  before  Christ,  the  pyramids 
of  Memphis  were  raised,  rocky  tombs  were  hollowed 
out,  obelisks  were  erected,  and  the  far-famed  Sphinx- 
Colossus  —  the  mystic  combination  of  a  human  head 
with  the  body  of  a  mighty  lion  —  was  sculptured  ;  and 
these  things  are  the  highest  manifestations  of  Egyptian 
art.  Since  then,  through  the  succeeding  centuries,  no 
alteration  took  place  in  its  types,  as  long  as  Art  was 
practised  at  all :  all  was  fixed  and  unchangeable.  The 
reason  of  this  unchanging  type  is  to  be  found  in  the 
complete  subjection  of  the  people,  and  therefore  of 
the  artist,  the  worker,  to  one  despotic  rule,  —  that  of 
the  kings  and  priests,  who  themselves  were  subjected 
to  immutable  laws,  working  ever  in  the  same  direction. 
That  division  of  labor  which  I  have  before  noticed  to 
be  destnictive  to  any  art  of  a  high  kind  prevailed  in 
Egyptian  art.  In  the  production  of  their  wall-paint- 
ings which  have  come  down  to  us,  and  from  which 
we  learn  many  curious  and  useful  things,  one  man  pre- 
pared the  surface,  a  second  drew  the  outline,  a  third 
hollowed  the  outlines  for  the  sunk  relief,  a  fourth  laid 
on  the  color. 

Then,  too,  in  Egypt,  the  artist  was  looked  on  as  an 
artisan,  and  was  classed  in  the  lowest  rank.  No  one, 
from  natural  inclination  or  especial  impulse,  selected 
Art  as  his  pursuit;  but  the  son  followed,  as  in  all 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       137 

crafts  and  professions,  the  mode  of  life  of  his  father, 
and  set  his  foot  in  the  tracks  of  his  predecessor,  so 
that  no  one  can  be  said  to  have  left  a  footprint  that 
could  strictly  be  called  his  own.  In  this  respect  the 
same  may  be  said  of  other  Eastern  nations :  it  is 
the  same  with  Assyria,  it  is  the  same  with  India,  it 
is  the  same  with  China.  Although  manifesting  admir- 
able powers  of  design,  gifts  of  color,  perfection  of 
workmanship,  the  art  of  these  nations  has  been  so 
bound  down  by  restrictions,  and  trammelled  by  slavish 
conditions,  that  it  could  never  attain  to  any  true  de- 
velopment, any  positive  history.  The  activity  of  the 
imagination  was  checked,  quenched ;  and  so  the  result 
was  a  certain  rigidity,  formality,  uniformity.  It  was 
reserved  for  a  real,  living,  breathing  genius  of  pro- 
duction, —  the  Greek,  —  soon  to  break  away  from  all 
this,  and  leave  it  far  behind.  The  fixed  type  of  the 
Egyptian  pyramid  and  the  lotus- flower  decoration,  the 
Assyrian  bull,  and  the  Chinese  pagoda,  are  familiar  to 
all  of  us ;  for  they  remained  so  long  the  same,  being 
reproduced  over  and  over  again  for  generations.  And 
when  we  consider  the  representations  of  the  human 
form  that  these  nations  have  produced,  we  shall  still 
see  the  same  fixed  type,  the  same  want  of  life,  motion, 
expression.  Think  of  the  Egyptian  warriors,  water- 
carriers,  slaves,  attendants,  priests,  kings,  all  with  flat 
skulls,  low  and  receding  brows,  oval  and  oblique  eyes, 
full  lips,  and  the  same  satisfied,  shallow  expression. 
So  may  we  recall  the  stout,  squat  figures  on  Assyrian 
monuments,  and  the  faces  with  large  curved  nose, 


138  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

large  eyes,  full  lips,  and  elaborately  curled  beard,  face 
after  face  the  same ;  and  in  Chinese  vase  and  rice- 
paper  paintings,  the  heads  with  flat  noses,  high  cheek- 
bones, and  little  eyes,  eternally  the  same.  Shall  we 
consider  either  of  these  —  the  Egyptian,  the  Assyrian, 
the  Chinese — a  worthy  or  beautiful  type  of  the  human 
face  divine  ? 

And  when  we  look  round  for  this  type,  it  is  the 
Greek  face  that  attracts  our  admiration  and  satisfies 
our  judgment :  the  sweet  oval  of  the  face,  the  straight, 
delicate  nose,  the  delicately  arched  brows,  the  clearly 
cut  chin  and  mouth,  —  these  go  to  make  up  the  true 
type  of  beauty.  "  In  representing  the  human  figure," 
says  Mr.  Pater,  "  Egyptian  art  had  held  by  mathemati- 
cal or  mechanical  proportions  exclusively.  The  Greek 
apprehends  of  it,  as  the  main  truth,  that  it  is  a  living 
organism,  with  freedom  of  movement :  and  hence  the 
infinite  possibilities  of  motion,  and  of  expression  by 
motion,  with  which  the  imagination  credits  the  higher 
sort  of  Greek  sculpture ;  while  the  figures  of  Egyptian 
art,  graceful  as  they  often  are,  seem  absolutely  in- 
capable of  any  motion  or  gesture  other  than  the  one 
actually  designed."  The  water-carrier  looks  as  if  he 
had  never  done,  and  could  never  do,  any  thing  but 
carry  water,  or  the  bowman  any  thing  but  hold  his  bow 
extended  in  act  to  shoot ;  so  fixed  and  without  play  of 
life  is  the  figure,  as  if  it  had  been  cut  out  of  cardboard. 
"The  work  of  the  Greek  sculptor"  (I  return  to  Mr. 
Pater),  "together  with  its  more  real  anatomy,  becomes 
full  also  of  human  soul.  .  .  In  the  works  of  the 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       139 

Asiatic  tradition,  in  the  marbles  of  Nineveh  for  instance, 
and  in  the  early  Greek  art,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  which 
derives  from  it,  the  form  of  man  is  inadequate,  and 
below  the  measure  of  perfection  attained  there  in  the 
representation  of  the  lower  forms  of  life ;  just  as  in  the 
little-reflective  art  of  Japan,  so  lovely  in  its  reproduc- 
tion of  flower  or  bird,  the  human  form  comes  almost 
as  a  caricature,  or  is  at  least  untouched  by  any  higher 
ideal.  To  that  Asiatic  tradition,  then,  with  its  perfect 
craftsmanship,  its  consummate  skill  in  design,  its  power 
of  hand,  the  Dorian,  the  European,  the  true  Hellenic 
influence,  brought  a  revelation  of  the  mind  and  body 
of  man." 

I  propose  to-day  to  lay  before  you  the  causes  and 
conditions  of  the  Greek  perfection  in  Art,  and  to  glance, 
though  it  must  be  but  slightly  and  briefly,  at  the  civili- 
zation of  the  Greeks,  something  of  their  habits  of  life, 
and  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  For,  in  explaining 
to  ourselves,  realizing,  understanding,  something  of  one 
great  period  of  Art  undeniably  foremost  according  to 
the  verdict  of  all  the  ages,  we  shall  have  a  standard  of 
perfection  to  which  at  least  one  range  of  notions  about 
Art  may  be  referred ;  and  from  the  general  principles 
of  taste  governing  that  group  of  the  best  human  pro- 
ductions, we  may  gain  light  on  all  the  rest. 

Now,  the  Greeks,  more  than  any  other  nation  of 
the  world,  were  pre-eminently  a  nation  of  taste  :  they 
had  a  genius  for  beauty.  The  first  cause  of  the  Greek 
understanding  and  love  of  beauty  is  found  in  the 
physical  beauty  they,  as  a  race,  possessed  in  a  high 


I4O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

degree  ;  and,  happy  in  the  conscious  possession  of  the 
gift,  they  cultivated  and  valued  it  to  its  fullest  extent. 
The  four  wishes  of  the  ancient  Greek,  quoted  by  Plato, 
were,  ist,  To  be  healthy ;  2d,  To  be  beautiful ;  3d,  To 
be  rich  honestly ;  4th,  To  be  gay  and  merry  with  one's 
friends.  And  indeed  we  may  say  that  any  person  in 
whom  these  four  wishes  were  fulfilled  would  be  likely 
to  have  a  very  pleasant  time  of  it. 

"By  no  people,"  says  Winckelmann,  "has  beauty 
been  so  highly  esteemed  as  by  the  Greeks.  The 
priests  of  a  youthful  Jupiter  at  /Egae,  of  the  Isme- 
nian  Apollo,  of  the  priest  who  at  Tanagra  led  the 
procession  of  Mercury,  bearing  a  lamb  upon  his  shoul- 
ders, —  were  always  youths  to  whom  the  prize  of 
beauty  had  been  awarded.  The  citizens  of  Egesta 
in  Sicily  (Greek  colonists)  erected  a  monument  to  a 
certain  Philip,  —  who  was  not  their  fellow-citizen,  but 
of  Croton,  —  for  his  distinguished  beauty ;  and  the 
people  made  offerings  to  it.  And  as  beauty  was  so 
longed  for  and  prized  by  the  Greeks,  every  beautiful 
person  sought  to  become  known  to  the  whole  people 
by  this  distinction,  and  above  all  to  approve  himself 
to  the  artists,  because  they  awarded  the  prize ;  and 
this  was  for  the  artists  an  opportunity  of  having  su- 
preme beauty  ever  before  their  eyes.  Beauty  even 
gave  a  right  to  fame,  and  we  find  in  Greek  histories 
the  most  beautiful  people  distinguished.  There  were 
established  contests  for  beauty  by  Cypselus,  king  of 
Arcadia,  by  the  river  Alpheiis ;  and  at  Sparta,  and  at 
Lesbos  in  the  temple  of  Juno,  and  among  the  Parrhavii, 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       14! 

there  were  contests  for  beauty  among  women."  So 
in  those  times  were  natural  advantages  more  honored 
than  learning.  The  civilized  world  had  not  yet 
learned,  moralists  and  poets  had  not  yet  invented,  the 
sentiment,  the  warning,  — 

"Beauty  is  but  a  vain  and  doubtful  good; 
A  shining  gloss  that  fadeth  suddenly; 
A  flower  that  dies  when  first  it  'gins  to  bud ; 
A  brittle  glass  that's  broken  presently ; 
A  doubtful  good,  a  gloss,  a  glass,  a  flower, 
Lost,  faded,  broken,  dead  within  an  hour." 

Now,  when  in  our  times  a  man  or  woman  possesses 
great  natural  advantages,  a  certain  self-consciousness 
and  artificiality  of  manner  nearly  always  accompany 
them.  The  reason  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  com- 
parative rareness  of  the  gift :  it  seems  to  be  such  a 
difficult  one  to  carry  about  gracefully.  People  seem 
often  too  proud ;  or  else  are  they  rather  ashamed  of 
being  beautiful?  For  the  severest  homilies  of  the 
moralist  of  childhood  are  directed  against  pride  of 
person  and  appearance  :  we  try  to  withhold  as  long  as 
possible  from  the  young  any  knowledge  of  their  own 
charms,  esteeming  that  knowledge  to  be  a  dangerous 
thing,  and  the  gift  of  beauty  itself  of  very  doubtful 
value.  The  Greeks  had  a  very  different  estimate,  as  we 
have  seen.  As  it  has  been  said,  it  was  given  to  them 
to  do  nothing  too  much.  They  seem  to  have  had 
perfectly  healthy,  simple,  in  some  respects  childlike 
minds,  in  perfectly  healthy,  beautiful  bodies  :  any  thing 
morbid  or  overwrought  was  impossible  to  them.  And 


142  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

so  a  sweet  serenity,  a  constant  cheerfulness,  was  their 
habitual  tone  of  mind.  With  them,  the  object  of  Art, 
according  to  Pericles,  was  "  to  chase  sadness  from 
life"  We  find  that  in  conduct  and  manners  the  quali- 
ties they  most  valued  were  propriety,  grace,  modesty, 
reverence  to  the  aged :  they  disliked  any  undignified 
disturbance  of  manner,  any  excitement  about  trifles, 
over-haste  to  tell  news,  undue  eagerness  or  curiosity, 
impatience  to  open  a  letter,  quick  walking,  crossed 
legs,  any  hasty,  sudden,  exaggerated  action.  The 
result  of  all  this  was  simplicity,  order,  calmness,  —  in 
fine,  taste  in  all  they  said  or  did.  And  so  it  followed 
that  the  productions  of  the  common  arts  were  simple 
and  elegant,  of  perfect  craftsmanship  and  beauty. 
Mr.  Pater  makes  us  remark  how  in  Homer  there  is  a 
constant  pre-occupation  with  the  beauty  of  the  com- 
mon things  of  life.  "We  seem  to  pass,  in  reading 
him,"  he  says,  "  through  the  treasures  of  some  royal 
collection :  in  him  the  presentation  of  almost  every 
aspect  of  life  is  beautified  by  the  work  of  cunning 
hands.  The  thrones,  coffers,  couches,  of  curious  car- 
pentery,  are  studded  with  bossy  ornaments  of  precious 
metals  effectively  disposed,  or  inlaid  with  stained  ivory, 
or  blue  cyanus,  or  amber,  or  pale  amber  like  gold ; 
the  surfaces  of  the  stone  conduits,  the  public  washing- 
troughs,  the  ramparts  on  which  the  weary  soldiers  rest 
themselves  when  returned  to  Troy,  are  fair  and  smooth ; 
all  the  fine  qualities  in  color  and  texture  of  woven 
stuff  are  carefully  noted,  —  the  fineness,  closeness,  soft- 
ness, pliancy,  gloss,  the  whiteness  or  nectar-like  tints 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       143 

in  which  the  weaver  delights  to  work ;  to  weave  the 
sea-purple  threads  is  the  appropriate  function  of  queens 
and  noble  women.  .  .  .  The  numerous  sorts  of  cups 
are  bossed  with  golden  studs,  or  have  handles  wrought 
with  figures  of  doves,  for  instance.  The  great  brazen 
caldrons  bear  an  epithet  that  means  flowery.  The 
trappings  of  the  horses,  the  various  parts  of  the 
chariots,  are  formed  of  various  metals.  The  women's 
ornaments  and  the  instruments  of  their  toilet  are  de- 
scribed ;  the  golden  vials  for  unguents  :  use  and  beauty 
are  still  undivided ';  all  that  men's  hands  are  set  to 
make  has  still  a  fascination  alike  for  workman  and 
spectators."  So  great  a  love  for  these  things  had  they, 
that  they  made  their  very  gods  help  to  make  them. 
Hephsestos  (Vulcan)  was  a  worker  in  metals ;  Pallas 
Athene  was  skilled  in  spinning  and  weaving.  And 
all  these  things  ministered  to  none  but  simple  and 
healthy  requirements  ;  there  was  no  ostentation,  no  ex- 
travagance, no  undue  luxury,  no  vulgarity  ;  great  men 
lived  in  small  houses,  and  in  them  there  was  plain 
living  and  high  thinking. 

Their  dress,  simple  and  natural  like  all  the  rest,  con- 
sisted of  a  longer  or  shorter  under-garment,  the  "  chi- 
ton,"—  like  a  sleeveless  shirt,  and  worn  without  a 
girdle,  —  and  a  mantle-like  upper  garment,  the  "  hima- 
tion,"  which  was  only  a  large  four-square,  thrown  over 
the  shoulder  of  the  left  arm,  and  drawn  either  above 
or  below  the  right  arm.  Hence  the  style  of  the  gar- 
ment did  not  depend  on  the  tailor  or  the  dressmaker ; 
but  every  man  and  woman  arranged  his  or  her  own 


144  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

garment  in  the  way  most  suited  to  individual  character 
and  taste,  so  that  it  became  of  itself  a  form  of  expres- 
sion. 

The  national  unity  that  existed  among  the  Greeks, 
in  spite  of  their  political  diversity,  has  been  accounted 
for  by  their  common  language,  their  common  religion, 
and  the  games  that  were  open  to  all,  and  offered  a 
universal  motive  and  place  of  assemblage  for  the  whole 
of  the  Greeks.  The  gymnasia  —  places  of  physical 
training  for  these  games  —  existed  all  over  Greece ;  in 
them  the  youths  practised  and  perfected  their  bodily 
powers,  in  attempting  to  rival  the  strength,  the  fleet- 
ness,  the  beauty,  of  the  gods  themselves :  thus  the 
artists  frequenting  the  gymnasia  had  always  under  their 
eyes  beautiful  attitudes  and  forms.  And  as  a  result  of 
this,  and  of  all  I  have  been  describing,  it  followed  that 
the  Greek  ideal  should  express  itself  pre-eminently  in 
sculpture.  To  the  athlete  once  crowned  in  the  games, 
a  statue  was  raised ;  to  him  who  was  crowned  twice, 
a  second  statue,  a  portrait  of  himself.  In  Athens  a 
statue  was  what  a  title,  or  an  order  of  merit,  is  with  us. 
Cities  rivalled  each  other  in  the  beauty  of  their  statues ; 
and  of  these  the  best  were  of  the  gods  and  heroes,  and 
were  placed  in  the  temples.  Every  city  seems  to  have 
had  a  population  of  statues  as  well  as  of  living  people  ; 
so  it  followed  that  the  'artist  was  a  highly  honored 
person.  While  the  Greeks  felt  a  kind  of  contempt  for 
an  author,  they  had  the  greatest  respect  for  an  artist. 
"  The  artist  is  the  only  wise  man,"  was  a  saying  of 
Socrates.  An  artist  might  become  a  lawgiver  if  he 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       145 

desired,  or  he  might  be  chosen  to  command  an  army, 
and  his  statue  had  the  especial  honor  of  being  placed 
near  to  those  of  the  gods  :  his  reputation  was  not  de- 
pendent on  fashion,  or  the  fancies  of  patrons,  but  on 
the  formally  delivered  judgment  of  the  wisest  men. 

When  Polygnotus,  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  painted 
a  public  edifice  in  Athens,  the  Amphictyons  ordered 
that  he  should  be  entertained  at  the  public  expense 
throughout  Greece.  In  contrast  to  this,  let  me  tell 
you  of  something  that  happened  in  our  own  day. 
Some  years  ago  Mr.  Watts,  the  R.A.,  offered,  to  the 
Directors  of  the  London  and  North-western  Railway 
Company  to  paint  the  central  hall  of  the  Euston  Station 
free  of  any  charge  ;  and  they  refused.  I  suppose  they 
thought  that  the  public  were  in  danger  of  being  so 
interested  in  the  paintings  as  to  forget  to  take  their 
tickets,  or  might  even  be  tempted  by  them  to  stay  in 
London,  and  not  go  on  their  North-western  journeys, 
—  which,  of  course,  would  never  do  at  all ! 

Well,  but  with  the  Greeks :  so  near,  in  their  eyes, 
seemed  the  artistic  gift  to  the  divine,  that  they  be- 
lieved their  first  statues  to  have  fallen  from  heaven. 
"  Hence,"  says  Dr.  Lubke,  "  Greek  art  originated  with 
the  images  of  the  gods.  Homer  had  glorified  the 
national  conceptions  in  his  verse,  and  had  represented 
the  gods,  in  perfect  human  form,  as  acting  and  suf- 
fering, gracious  or  angry,  endowed  with  all  human 
passions.  If  the  East  had  filled  its  mythology  with 
gloomy  and  fearful  legends,  and  profound  or  fantastic 
subtleties,  and,  therefore,  could  only  portray  the  forms 


146  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

of  the  gods  by  monstrous  deformity  of  the  general 
type,  in  the  clear,  pure  myths  of  the  Greeks,  all  misty 
immensity  vanished,  and  man  created  the  gods  after 
his  own  image.  Although  whole  stages  of  childlike 
helplessness  had  to  be  passed  through,  in  which  man 
only  succeeded  in  forming  a  puppet-like  idol ;  although, 
in  the  earliest  Greek  divinities,  much  of  the  monstrous 
creations  of  the  East  is  still  preserved,  as  in  the  hun- 
dred-breasted Artemis  of  the  Ephesians  or  the  four- 
armed  Apollo  of  the  I^acedoemonians,  —  still  the  Greek 
mind,  in  the  end,  discovered  the  right  way  of  investing 
its  gods  with  the  sublimity  and  beauty  of  the  human 
form.  This  way  was  the  observation  and  apprehension 
of  nature."  • 

Instead  of  troubling  you,  as  my  space  and  time  are 
so  limited,  with  what  would  be  a  mere  string  of  the 
names  of  sculptors  and  their  works,  I  will  only  dwell 
on  the  name  of  Pheidias  and  his  masterpieces,  —  the 
sculptures  of  the  Parthenon.  A  cleaf  view  of  the  best 
work  of  the  best  time  will  be  better  grasped  and  re- 
tamed  than  a  more  meagre  general  account. 

After  the  victories  over  the  Persians,  the  Greek 
national  character  seems  to  have  reached  its  highest 
point  of  development ;  and  in  Athens  all  its  best  was 
concentrated,  both  of  literature  and  of  art ;  and  at  the 
head  of  all  that  was  greatest  in  art  stood  Pheidias. 
He  was  born  in  500  B.C.,  and  he  died  about  the  age 
of  sixty-eight.  One  of  his  earlier  works  was  a  colossal 
statue  of  Athene,  something  like  seventy  feet  high :  it 
stood  on  the  Acropolis  at  Athens,  and  could  be  seen 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE,       147 

by  shipmen  far  out  on  the  open  sea.  Then  he  made 
the  Athene  of  the  Parthenon,  of  gold  and  ivory;  it 
was  completed  in  437  B.C. :  and  again,  in  the  evening 
of  his  days,  he  executed  another  gold  and- ivory  chrys- 
elephantine statue  of  the  Olympian  Zeus.  Still  it  is 
in  the  Parthenon,  the  splendid  temple  for  Athene's 
feasts,  that  his  genius,  and  its  influence  over  those 
who  worked  with  him,  shone  at  its  greatest :  probably 
the  whole  design  of  the  temple,  as  well  as  its  sculptural 
decorations,  was  planned  and  executed  under  his  super- 
intendence. The  building  contained  the  gold-and- 
ivory  statue  of  Athene  :  it  was  of  the  Doric  order  of 
architecture.  The  most  beautiful  and  noteworthy  parts 
of  its  sculptures  were  the  frieze  that  covered  the  upper 
part  of  the  wall  within  the  colonnade,  and  the  pedi- 
ments eastern  and  western.  In  later  times  the  Parthe- 
non from  a  Pagan  temple  became  a  Christian  church, 
and  again  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  converted  into  a 
Turkish  mosque. 

In  the  struggles  between  the  Turks  and  Venetians  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  it  suffered  from  the  explosion 
of  a  shell  in  a  powder-magazine  contained  within  the 
building  itself;  and  from  that  date  downwards  it  was 
exposed  to  constant  injury.  Some  of  these  priceless 
sculptures  were  made  into  lime ;  some  were  built  by 
fragments  into  walls ;  and,  worst  of  all,  some  were 
mutilated  by  travellers  breaking  off  pieces  as  me- 
mentos of  their  brainless  excursions.  In  the  years 
1801-3  tne  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon  then  remaining 
were  removed  to  England  by  the  Earl  of  Elgin,  pur- 


148  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

chased  from  him  by  the  Government,  and  placed  in 
the  British  Museum.  Lord  Byron,  in  his  "  Childe 
Harold,"  bitterly  laments  what  he  calls 

"  the  modern  Pict's  ignoble  boast, 
To  rive  what  Goth,  and  Turk,  and  Time  hath  spared." 

But  I,  for  one,  see  no  reason  but  to  rejoice  that  these 
sublime  and  perfectly  beautiful  works  are  within  our 
reach,  so  that  we  may  enjoy  them  at  our  leisure,  with- 
out the  labor  and  distractions  of  travelling.  I  can 
only  wish  that  the  world  in  general  were  not  so  con- 
tent with  knowing  them  by  hearsay  only,  instead  of 
using  their  privileges. 

The  subject  of  the  eastern  pediment  of  the  Par- 
thenon had  relation  to  the  birth  of  Athene  from  the 
brain  of  Zeus.  These  figures  have  been  variously 
supposed  to  be  two  of  the  Fates,  or  else  the  daughters 
of  Cecrops.  The  attitude  of  one  of  them  seems  to 
express  a  readiness  to  spring  up,  the  body  bent  for- 
ward, and  the  feet  drawn  back,  —  a  contrast  to  the 
tranquil  posture  of  the  reclining  figure,  who  has  not 
yet  heard  the  tidings.  The  "  chiton "  —  the  shirt- 
like  garment  I  mentioned  as  part  of  the  Greek  cos- 
tume —  clings  closely  to  the  form,  and  over  the  lower 
half  of  the  body  is  thrown  a  mantle  of  thicker  sub- 
stance. The  forms  of  these  women  are  large  and 
robust,  but  at  the  same  time  supple  and  graceful,  and 
expressing  perfect  maturity  of  womanhood.  Now,  in 
a  few  words  to  describe  the  frieze  which  ran  along  the 
sides  of  the  temple  within  the  colonnade,  —  that  world- 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       149 

famed  frieze  of  the  Parthenon,  —  the  student's  first 
and  the  artist's  last  and  highest  theme  of  praise.  Its 
subject  is  the  celebration  of  the  Panathenaic  festival. 
This  festival  took  place  every  year  in  Athens.  A  sol- 
emn sacrifice,  equestrian  and  gymnastic  contests,  and 
the  Pyrrhic  dance,  were  all  included  in  the  ceremo- 
nial ;  but  its  principal  feature  was  the  offering  of  a  new 
veil  (peplos)  to  the  goddess  on  her  birthday.  This  was 
conveyed  in  solemn  procession  to  her  temple,  the  Par- 
thenon. In  this  procession  all  that  was  best  and  greatest 
in  Athens  appeared;  the  gentle  graces  of  maiden- 
hood ;  the  fresh  strength  of  beautiful  youths,  trained 
in  the  gymnasia ;  the  dignity  of  older  men,  and  magis- 
trates chosen  by  the  people ;  warriors,  rulers,  priests  ; 
nay,  the  very  gods  themselves,  who  sit  in  well-ranged 
groups,  —  Zeus,  Hera,  Demeter,  Athene,  —  awaiting 
the  presentation  of  the  peplos.  The  end  of  the  pro- 
cession has  just  reached  the  temple.  First,  a  group 
of  archons  and  heralds,  quietly  awaiting  the  rest ;  then 
a  troop  of  Athenian  maidens,  singly  or  in  groups,  with 
jars  and  other  vessels  in  their  hands  —  they  are  charm- 
ing, modest  figures,  in  festive  garments  of  delicate 
texture,  with  a  simple  and  serious  air,  as  if  absorbed 
in  the  ceremony;  then  come  sacrificial  animals,  fol- 
lowing quietly,  standing  and  struggling,  bearers  of  sac- 
rificial gifts,  flute-players  and  musicians,  warriors  in 
chariots  of  four  horses ;  then  detached  horsemen ;  and 
lastly,  youths  in  the  prime  of  strength  and  beauty, 
preparing  for  the  procession,  bridling  and  curbing 
their  steeds,  —  the  matchless  horses  of  the  Parthenon. 


I5O  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

Thus  did  Pheidias'  representation  of  the  Panathenaic 
procession  include  all  that  was  fairest,  greatest,  best, 
in  Athens ;  and  so  may  we  take  it  as  a  type,  an  epi- 
tome, of  Greek  life  at  its  fullest  and  highest. 

And  so  it  was  to  the  temple  that  the  Greeks  gave 
their  best  in  sculpture.  It  was  to  the  temple,  too, 
that  their  best  architecture  was  given.  The  design 
of  private  dwellings  was  quite  insignificant.  All  the 
greatest  of  both  these  arts  in  Greece  belongs  to  the 
period  immediately  following  the  Persian  war. 

On  the  Acropolis  of  Athens,  at  that  time,  stood 
what  we  cannot  but  imagine  to  have  been  the  most 
beautiful  group  of  buildings  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
A  broad  winding  way,  and  broad  terraced  flights  of 
steps,  led  up  to  the  splendid  gate  of  the  Propylaea. 
On  the  right,  the  slender  and  graceful  temple  of  the 
Wingless  Victory,  —  wingless  because  she  was  never 
to  leave  Athens  more.  Over  the  roof  of  the  central 
building  towered  the  colossal  brazen  Athene  by  the 
hand  of  Pheidias;  then  the  temple  of  the  goddess 
herself,  the  Parthenon,  rose  farther  to  the  right,  with 
its  forest  of  pillars  and  richly  sculptured  pediments ; 
while  to  the  left  could  be  seen  a  portion  of  the  Erech- 
theium,  the  temple  for  the  true  worship  of  Athene, 
while  the  Parthenon  was  the  temple  for  her  feasts. 
These  things  were  the  glory  of  Athens  at  her  greatest 
and  worthiest  period  of  freedom  of  Art. 

The  time  at  which  such  perfect  examples  of  the 
arts  of  sculpture  and  architecture  were  to  be  pro- 
duced did  not  last  long :  it  ceased  with  the  beginning 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       I$I 

of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Great  names  and  great 
works,  it  is  true,  followed ;  but  the  period  I  have  de- 
scribed remained  ever  after  unapproached  in  its  per- 
fection. The  group  of  Niobe  and  her  children,  of 
Laocoon  and  his  sons  strangled  by  serpents,  the  Dying 
Gaul  (usually  wrongly  called  a  Gladiator),  —  these 
belong  to  the  next  period  of  Greek  sculpture ;  and, 
although  they  impress  us  greatly  by  their  power  of 
dramatic  expression  and  their  wonderful  living  vigor, 
they  have  not  the  earlier  serenity,  majesty,  and  repose 
that  make  the  figures  of  Pheidias  so  perfectly  de- 
lightful and  satisfying. 

Next  in  the  list  of  masters  of  the  world  come  the 
Romans.  The  Greeks,  we  may  say,  governed  the 
world  by  beauty ;  the  Romans,  by  polity.  This  con- 
trast between  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  spirit  is  to 
be  observed  in  every  department  of  life. 

The  Greek  spirit  tended  to  the  ideal ;  the  Roman,  to 
the  real.  The  Greek  motive  was  beauty  and  grace ; 
the  Roman,  law  and  dominion.  The  Greek  sought 
after  art  and  civilization ;  the  Roman,  after  conquest, 
polity.  The  civilization  of  the  Greek  tended  to  simpli- 
city; that  of  the  Roman,  to  costliness  and  luxury. 
The  Greek  poetry  tended  to  the  dramatic  or  epic ;  the 
Roman,  to  the  satiric  or  didactic.  The  Greek  games 
were  peaceful  contests  of  strength,  skill,  fleetness ;  the 
Roman  games  were  the  bloody  strife  of  the  gladiator. 
"  Let  others  study  Art,"  says  Virgil  in  the  ^Eneid : 
"  Rome  has  somewhat  better  to  do  —  namely,  law  and 
dominion.'* 


152  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

And  so  it  was  that  the  Romans  became  the  pupils 
of  the  Greeks  in  poetry,  in  Art,  in  all  expression  of  in- 
tellectual life,  even  in  the  embodiment  of  their  religion. 
"Art  was  with  them,  not  the  hearty  delight  of  the 
people,  not  the  requisite  of  the  national  faith,  not  the 
emanation  of  an  imagination  excited  by  the  poet's 
ideal  of  the  gods ;  but  an  article  of  luxury  belonging 
to  the  rich  and  powerful,  the  handmaid  of  authority, 
ready  to  adorn  life,  to  ennoble  power,  and  to  attract 
the  cultivated  taste  of  the  few.  Architecture,  indeed, 
seemed  to  bear  closer  affinity  to  the  Roman  character 
than  the  rest  of  the  arts,  as  it  belonged  to  the  practical 
necessities  of  life :  so  under  their  hands  rose  the 
rounded  arch,  —  first  borrowed  from  the  Etruscans, 
and  brought  by  the  Romans  to  greater  artistic  perfec- 
tion, —  applied  first  to  aqueducts,  bridges,  viaducts, 
and  then  to  splendid  public  buildings  and  monuments, 
such  as  the  arches  of  Titus  and  of  Constantine,  the 
Coliseum,  the  Pantheon,  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  and 
many  others. 

From  the  time  —  and  even  before  it  —  of  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  Greeks  by  the  Romans,  the  conquered 
had  been  the  masters  of  the  conquerors  in  every  thing 
belonging  to  taste  and  Art. 

So,  after  Greece  became  in  name  as  well  as  in  fact 
a  Roman  province,  a  new  school  of  Athenian  sculpture 
arose  in  Rome  :  this  was  in  the  early  days  of  the  em- 
pire. To  this  later  school  belong  the  Medicean 
Venus,  the  Farnese  Hercules,  and  the  Apollo  Belve- 
dere. These,  until  modern  discoveries  and  taste  de- 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       153 

cided  the  superiority  of  the  work  of  Pheidias  and  his 
time,  were  long  held  to  bear  the  palm  of  excellence. 
They  are  extremely  perfect  and  finished  in  execution, 
soft  and  delicate  and  graceful,  but  are  lacking  in  the 
purity,  the  elevation,  of  the  earlier  school ;  and,  placed 
side  by  side  with  them,  they  seem  to  strive  after  effect, 
and  are  wanting  in  simplicity,  —  the  charm  of  uncon- 
scious beauty. 

More  essentially  Roman  than  these  are  the  innumer- 
able portrait  statues  and  busts  that  have  come  down 
to  us.  A  Roman  city  was  said  to  have  more  statues 
than  living  people  in  it.  In  short,  Art  was  used  among 
the  Romans  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  her  victories, 
to  commemorate  an  individual  or  a  family  name,  to 
enhance  the  costliness  and  luxury  of  life ;  not  for  the 
sake  of  beauty,  for  the  love  of  Art  for  its  own  sake. 
So  it  followed  that  their  architecture,  though  possess- 
ing great  qualities  of  solidity,  strength,  and  richness 
of  execution,  of  material ;  their  sculpture,  though  pos- 
sessing accuracy,  fidelity,  reality,  — were  yet  lacking 
in  the  higher  ideal  qualities  of  the  Greek. 

Something  I  should  say  of  the  Pompeiian  remains, 
which  are  a  blending  of  the  later  Greek  with  the  Ro- 
man. From  them  we  find  that  house  construction  and 
decoration  were  very  rich  and  elaborate  in  the  first 
century  A.D. ;  and  so  we  gain  a  just  idea  of  the  Roman 
home  and  its  arrangements  at  that  epoch,  and  add 
another  point  of  difference  between  them  and  the 
Greeks,  who,  as  I  said,  cared  nothing  for  pride  of 
appearance  in  their  dwellings. 


154  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

And  now  I  must  take  a  great  leap.  I  must  pass 
over  the  early  years  of  the  Christian  Church.  Chris- 
tianity, fettered  by  the  forms  of  antique  life  at  enmity 
with  its  spirit,  abhorring  its  superstition  and  idolatry, 
rejected  and  dreaded  the  art  of  the  sculptor  and  his 
graven  image.  The  necessity  for  providing  buildings 
worthy  for  Christian  worship  led  at  first  to  the  adapta- 
tion, for  that  purpose,  of  Roman  temples  and  basilicas, 
with  their  rows  of  columns  and  rounded  arches ;  and 
as  the  seat  of  empire  was  transferred  from  Rome  to 
Byzantium,  architecture  —  that  architecture  that  had 
been  Greek  —  then  put  on  different  features,  and  be- 
came Byzantine  Romanesque.  The  first  ten  centuries 
A.D.  were  centuries  of  destruction,  of  struggle,  —  the 
old  spirit  contending  with  the  new,  —  till,  when  at  last 
the  victory  of  Christianity  over  Paganism  was  com- 
plete, arose  that  wonderful  work  of  man,  the  expression 
of  the  Christian  love  and  hope  and  faith,  —  the  Gothic 
Architecture  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

And  here,  by  way  of  roughly  characterizing  these 
three  great  architectural  styles,  —  the  Greek,  the  Ro- 
manesque, the  Gothic,  —  I  will  borrow  Mr.  Ruskin's 
definitions,  and  will  call  the  first  the  architecture  of 
the  lintel;  the  second,  the  architecture  of  the  rounded 
arch  and  cupola;  the  third,  the  architecture  of  the 
pointed  arch.  And  I  will  ask  you  to  fix  these  m  your 
minds  by  associating  them  with  the  characteristics  of 
three  buildings. 

First,  as  belonging  to  the  Greek  architecture  of  the 
lintel  (horizontal  lines  resting  on  columns),  I  should 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       15$ 

name  the  Parthenon,  originally  perhaps  the  most  per- 
fect example,  but  too  shattered  now  for  any  complete 
observation  :  instead  of  this,  here  is  the  temple  of  Po- 
seidon at  Psestum  '  in  Lower  Italy,  which  belongs  to  the 
same  period  as  all  the  other  best  Greek  art,  —  the  fifth 
century  B.C.  This,  one  of  the  best-preserved  monu- 
ments of  so  great  an  antiquity,  stands  in  solemn  isola- 
tion on  the  site  of  a  once  flourishing  city  of  Magna 
Grecia.  I  have  been  told  by  travellers  of  the  way  in 
which,  more  than  any  other  antique  building,  it  im- 
presses the  imagination  by  its  grandeur,  as  if  it  had 
been  raised  by  the  hands  of  gods  and  heroes,  and  not 
by  such  men  as  are  common  at  this  day.  Its  columns, 
channelled  by  flutings,  bear  up  the  mighty  beams  of 
the  architrave,  the  capitals  marking  the  place  where 
the  support  meets  the  burden ;  in  front,  the  pediment 
with  its  now  vanished  sculptures.  This  is  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  lintel. 

Second,  as  an  example  of  the  Romanesque  architec- 
ture —  rounded  arch  and  cupola  —  there  is  St.  Mark's 
at  Venice. 

"  St.  Mark,"  says  an  old  chronicler,  "  having  seen 
the  people  of  Aquileia  well  grounded  in  religion,  and 
being  called  to  Rome  by  St.  Peter,  before  setting  off 
took  with  him  the  holy  bishop  Hermagorus,  and  went 
in  a  small  boat  to  the  marshes  of  Venice.  There  were 
at  that  time  some  houses  built  upon  a  certain  high 
bank  called  Rialto ;  and  the  boat  being  driven  by  the 
wind  was  anchored  in  a  marshy  place,  when  St.  Mark, 

1  See  heading  of  chapter. 


1 56  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

* 

snatched  into  ecstasy,  heard  the  voice  of  an  angel  say- 
ing to  him,  '  Peace  be  to  thee,  Mark :  here  shall  thy 
body  rest.' "  And  here  was  to  be  Venice,  and  the 
Church  of  St.  Mark,  her  patron  saint.  The  earlier 
building  was  destroyed ;  and  the  main  portion  of  the 
present  church  belongs  to  the  eleventh  century,  though 
additions  and  alterations  went  on  for  two  or  three 
hundred  years  later.  I  will  quote  a  few  words  from 
Mr.  Ruskin's  description  of  it :  "A  multitude  of  pil- 
lars and  white  domes  clustered  into  a  long,  low  pyramid 
of  colored  light,  —  a  treasure-heap,  it  seems,  partly  of 
gold,  and  partly  of  opal  and  mother-of-pearl,  hollowed 
beneath  into  five  great  vaulted  porches,  ceiled  with 
fair  mosaic  and  beset  with  sculpture  of  alabastc?;  clear 
as  amber  and  delicate  as  ivory ;  .  .  .  and  round  the 
walls  of  the  porches  there  are  set  pillars  of  variegated 
stones,  jasper  and  porphyry  and  deep-green  serpentine, 
spotted  with  flakes  of  snow ;  .  .  .  their  capitals  rich 
with  interwoven  tracery,  rooted  knots  of  herbage,  and 
drifting  leaves  of  acanthus  and  vine,  mystical  signs,  all 
beginning  and  ending  in  the  cross ;  and  above  them, 
in  the  broad  archivolts,  a  continuous  chain  of  language 
and  of  life,  angels  and  the  signs  of  heaven,  and  the 
labors  of  men ;  .  .  .  and  above  these,  another  range 
of  glittering  pinnacles,  mixed  with  white  arches  edged 
with  scarlet  flowers." 

Third,  as  an  example  of  the  Gothic  architecture  of 
the  pointed  arch  and  perpendicular  lines  we  will  take 
the  Cathedral  of  Amiens.  When  to  the  Romanesque 
epoch  of  architecture,  —  of  which  the  type  is  the 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       157 

rounded  arch,  —  the  new  style  with  its  pointed  arch 
first  succeeded,  its  builders  were  called  Gothic  by  way 
of  reproach  ;  for  it  was  thought  a  rude  innovation, 
such  as  only  barbarian  invention  could  have  produced. 
And  since  that  style  has  come  to  be  honored  as  it 
deserves,  it  is  still  called  Gothic,  simply  because  no 
better  name  has  been  found  for  it.  I  will  not  attempt 
at  the  present  time  any  detailed  description  of  its 
characteristics,  varying  as  they  did  in  different  cen- 
turies and  countries,  but  simply  point  to  Amiens  as  a 
crowning  example  of  the  culminating  power  of  Gothic 
architecture  in  the  thirteenth  century.  "This  last 
place  of  good  Gothic,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  has  no  room 
to  spare.  It  rises  as  high  as  it  can  on  narrowest  foun- 
dation ;  stands  in  perfect  strength  with  the  least  possi- 
ble substance  in  its  bars ;  connects  niche  with  niche, 
and  line  with  line  in  an  exquisite  harmony,  from  which 
no  stone  can  be  removed,  and  to  which  you  can  add 
not  a  pinnacle ;  and  yet  introduces,  in  rich  though 
now  more  calculated  profusion,  the  living  elements  of 
its  sculpture,  —  sculpture  in  the  quatrefoils,  sculpture 
in  the  brackets,  sculpture  in  the  gargoyles,  sculpture  in 
the  niches,  sculpture  in  the  ridges  and  hollows  of  its 
mouldings ;  not  a  shadow  without  a  meaning,  and  not 
a  line  without  life."  Then  came  a  change,  and  Gothic 
art  became  gradually  debased.  Instead  of  taking  de- 
light in  the  things  he  thought  of  as  he  carved,  the 
builder  began  to  pride  himself  in  his  own  workman- 
ship, and  how  he  should  win  the  praise  of  men  for  the 
cleverness  of  his  carving,  and  what  wonderful  impossi- 


158  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

ble  things  he  could  contrive  to  do.  "And  the  ca- 
tastrophe "  (our  teacher  goes  on)  "  was  instant  and 
irrevocable.  Architecture  became  in  France  a  mere 
web  of  waving  lines ;  in  England,  a  mere  grating  of 
perpendicular  ones.  Redundance  was  substituted  for 
invention,  and  geometry  for  passion ;  the  Gothic  art 
became  a  mere  expression  of  wanton  expenditure  and 
vulgar  mathematics,  and  was  swept  away  —  as  it  then 
deserved  to  be  swept  away  —  by  the  severer  pride  and 
purer  learning  of  the  schools  founded  on  classical 
tradition." 

For  then  came  the  Renaissance,  —  the  new  birth  of 
antique  philosophy  and  art.  I  need  scarcely  remind 
you  of  the  three  events  that  are  said  in  the  history- 
books  to  have  brought  about  this  great  and  notable 
change  in  the  world's  affairs,  —  the  invention  of  print- 
ing, the  conquest  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  and 
the  discovery  of  America.  The  first,  by  increasing  the 
general  spread  of  knowledge  and  thought ;  the  second, 
by  carrying  a  stream  of  Greek  culture  to  the  West ;  the 
third,  by  enlarging  the  ideas  and  imaginations  of  men, 
—  led  to  great  revolutions  in  politics,  social  matters, 
art,  religion,  and  brought  about  new  ideas  of  state  and 
polity,  —  the  Reformation,  the  Renaissance. 

The  revised  study  of  antiquity  led  to  great  enthusi- 
asm for  classic  forms,  the  revival  of  the  study  of  Nature 
in  the  Greek  spirit,  and  a  renewal  of  that  kind  of 
human  power  and  genius  that  goes  to  produce  fine 
art ;  but  that  power  and  genius  took  now  a  different 
form,  —  from  sculpture  it  passed  into  painting.  What 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       1 59 

else  I  have  to  say  about  the  Renaissance  will  find  a. 
more  appropriate  place  in  my  next  lecture.  I  have 
space  to  tell  of  none  of  the  glories  of  this  reflection  of 
the  old  Greek  ideas,  expanded  into  greater  splendor 
by  the  later  civilization  ;  and  I  must  omit  any  mention 
of  the  Gothic  revival  in  our  own  century.  My  more 
immediate  object  to-day  is  to  point  out  what  a  living 
influence  the  Greek  has  been  always,  and  still  is,  in 
the  world.  After  its  own  greatest  period  of  freedom 
and  perfection,  the  Greek  spirit  passed,  as  we  have 
seen,  into  the  Roman  world,  keeping  alive  the  tradi- 
tions of  Art  in  Rome,  in  Byzantium,  in  the  Christian 
Church.  In  the  last  the  flame  burned  but  feebly  for 
a  time  in  hidden  corners,  with  scholars  and  students  ; 
but  at  the  Renaissance  it  flamed  up  in  great  splendor, 
—  then  in  part  subsiding,  only  to  re-appear  with  a 
newer  and  clearer  lustre  in  a  new  Renaissance  of  these 
days.  Let  us  think  in  what  quite  obvious  ways  that 
Greek  influence  still  shows  itself.  The  Greek  is  still 
the  standard  of  personal  beauty,  the  type  of  all  that 
is  greatest  in  one  great  school  of  architecture,  —  still 
the  standard  of  unapproached  excellence  in  sculpture. 
We  see  Greek  influence  in  the  subject  and  treatment 
of  many  modern  painters,  such  as  Sir  Frederick  Leigh- 
ton  and  Mr.  Albert  Moore.  Greek  literature  and  art 
were  never  so  deeply  or  so  widely  studied  as  at  the 
present  time ;  so  that  the  Greeks  are  really  nearer  to 
us  by  our  better  understanding  and  knowledge  of  them 
than  many  a  nation  of  more  modern  times,  and  it  has 
been  said  that  a  highly  cultivated  man  of  the  present 


160  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

day  would  find  himself  very  much  at  home  in  the 
Athens  of  Pericles.  Moreover,  the  fancy  has  taken 
certain  people,  to  give  evening  parties  at  which  it  was 
de  rigueur  to  wear  Greek  costume ;  patterns  for  which 
were  sent  out  with  the  invitations,  to  the  great  confu- 
sion of  dressmakers.  In  London  and  at  Oxford,  the 
Greek  drama  has  been  played,  both  in  Greek  and  in 
English ;  some  of  our  children's  favorite  story-books 
are  the  Greek  fairy-tales  of  gods  and  heroes.  And 
one  thing  more,  which  must  not  be  missed  in  reckoning 
up  our  debts  to  the  Greeks :  as  the  marvellous  beau- 
ties of  God's  work  in  Nature  have  been  revealed  to  us 
through  the  language  of  Greek  Art,  so  his  gift  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  was  given  to  us  in  the 
Greek  language  of  letters. 

Some  few  words  I  would  wish  to  say,  in  conclusion, 
about  the  state  of  the  arts  of  sculpture  and  architec- 
ture at  the  present  day. 

"Sculpture,"  said  Sir  Frederick  Leighton  in  his 
speech  at  the  last  Academy  dinner  (1881),  "  is  shaking 
off  its  sleep,  and  striving  for  a  new  day  of  life  ;  "  and 
a  few  of  the  works  then  exhibited  seemed  to  confirm 
his  words  to  some  extent.  Nevertheless,  the  works  of 
modern  sculpture  that  we  in  London  are  most  familiar 
with,  that  are  standing  ever  before  our  eyes,  and  form 
the  entire  experience  of  the  vast  majority  of  people  in 
sculpture,  —  the  Trafalgar-square  lions,  all  four  exactly 
alike  ;  the  Temple  Bar  griffin ;  the  golden  image  of 
Prince  Albert  sitting  looking  at  the  Albert  Hall,  as- 
sisted by  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  —  these 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       l6l 

bring  to  the  mind  few  ideas  or  associations  other  than 
ridiculous  ones.  Some  few  real  sculptors  there  are, 
no  doubt,  but  none  whose  works  are  so  well  known  as 
these.  What  wonder  if  men  of  taste  turn  away  their 
eyes  from  them,  and  go  on  studying  Greek  Art  instead  ? 
And  as  to  architecture,  some  of  the  best  work  of 
the  day  is  done,  not  in  doing  any  thing  towards  the 
creation  of  a  new  style,  but  in  making  careful  and 
learned  reproductions  of  old  ones;  while  the  worst 
work  is  by  way  of  restoring  the  church  work  of  better 
days  than  these,  often  doing  it  terrible  damage  in  try- 
ing to  effect  the  impossible  task,  —  that  of  bringing 
back  its  original  character  and  conditions.  "Thus  the 
matter  stands,"  says  Mr.  Morris.  "  These  old  buildings 
have  been  altered  and  added  to  century  after  century, 
often  beautifully,  always  historically  ;  their  very  value, 
a  great  part  of  it,  lay  in  that :  they  have  suffered,  too, 
almost  always  from  neglect,  often  from  violence  (that 
latter  also  a  piece  of  history  often  far  from  uninterest- 
ing) ;  but  ordinary  obvious  mending  would  almost 
always  have  kept  them  standing,  pieces  of  nature  and 
of  history.  But  of  late  years  a  great  uprising  of  eccle- 
siastical zeal,  coinciding  with  a  great  increase  of  study 
and  consequently  of  knowledge  of  mediaeval  architec- 
ture, has  driven  people  into  spending  their  money  on 
these  buildings,  not  merely  with  the  purpose  of  repair- 
ing them,  of  keeping  "them  safe,  clean,  and  wind  and 
water  tight,  but  also  of '  restoring '  them  to  some  ideal 
state  of  perfection  ;  sweeping  away,  if  possible,  all  signs 
of  what  has  befallen  them  at  least  since  the  Reforma- 


1 62  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

tion,  and  often  since  dates  much  earlier.  This  has 
sometimes  been  done  with  much  disregard  of  Art,  and 
entirely  from  ecclesiastical  zeal,  but  oftener  it  has  been 
well  meant  enough  as  regards  Art.  From  my  point  of 
view,  this  restoration  must  be  as  impossible  to  bring 
about  as  the  attempt  at  it  is  destructive  to  the  build- 
ings so  dealt  with.  I  scarcely  like  to  think  what  a  great 
part  of  them  have  been  made  nearly  useless  to  stu- 
dents of  Art  and  history.  Unless  you  knew  a  great 
deal  about  architecture,  you  perhaps  would  scarce  un- 
derstand what  terrible  damage  has  been  done  by  that 
dangerous  '  little  knowledge  '  in  this  matter ;  but  this, 
I  think,  is  easy  to  be  understood,  —  that  to  deal  reck- 
lessly with  valuable  and  national  monuments,  which 
when  once  gone  can  never  be  replaced  by  any  splen- 
dor of  modern  Art,  is  doing  a  very  sorry  service  to  the 
state." 

Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  house-architecture  is 
the  thing  in  which  we  are  really  beginning  to  excel ; 
not  the  architecture  of  stucco-fronted  terraces,  or  seven 
or  eight  or  nine  storied  flats,  but  of  those  gable- 
roofed,  casemented,  red-brick  houses  that  are  now 
often  to  be  seen  in  town  and  country,  attracting  the 
eye  by  their  brightness  of  color  and  cheerful  irregular- 
ity, —  in  contrast  to  the  ordinary  builder's  type,  a 
square  box  with  holes  in  it.  These  Queen  Anne  or 
Early  English  houses,  whatever" they  may  happen  to  be 
called,  if  they  are  constructed  on  a  sound  good  design, 
and  of  good  and  lasting  workmanship,  —  wood  seen 
to  be  wood,  brick  openly  brick,  and  paint  unmistak- 


SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE.       163 

ably  paint ;  no  cast-iron  ornament,  but  \vxn&-ivrought 
ornament  if  it  is  had  at  all ;  no  huge  expanses  of  plate- 
glass,  but  little  well-set  panes,  —  if  to  all  these  are 
added  every  modern  appliance  for  health  and  conven- 
ience, we  shall  have  an  ideal  dwelling-house,  a  home 
of  cheerfulness,  comfort,  hospitality ;  and  this  is  much 
nearer  of  attainment  by  people  of  moderate  means 
than  it  seemed  a  few  years  ago. 

For  our  churches,  it  seems  we  can  do  no  better  than 
follow  the  patterns  set  us  in  ages  of  more  faith  than 
the  present.  In  public  buildings,  there  is  much  costli- 
ness and  little  grandeur.  But  the  ho??ie,  —  that,  at  least, 
it  seems  within  our  power  to  make  solid  and  beautiful 
and  comfortable,  —  ^-something 

"  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

And  with  this,  for  the  present  at  least,  we  must  be 
satisfied. 


•LEONARDO-DA-  VINCI 


VI.  — FINE  ART  — PAINTING. 

IT  may  be  said,  on  reviewing  the  ground  that  we 
have  already  traversed,  that  Art  is  a  universal  lan- 
guage, intelligible  to  the  whole  world  alike,  of  which 
the  rudiments  at  least  were  possessed  by  man  in  the 
very  earliest  stages  of  his  existence,  and  are  so  still 
by  him  in  the  lowest  existing  conditions  of  civilization. 
And  this  metaphor  —  the  likening  of  Art  to  a  lan- 
guage —  may  be  carried  far  in  many  directions,  but  it 
is  in  one  alone  that  I  would  lead  your  thoughts  to-day. 
It  is  this  :  — 

The  literature  of  all  fully  developed  languages  has 
its  classics,  —  masterpieces  and  models  of  style,  in 
which  not  only  the  subject  and  the  idea  are  great  and 
elevated,  but  also  the  form,  the  workmanship,  are  in 
themselves  a  perfect  expression  of  the  soul,  the  genius, 
164 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  165 

of  the  language ;  and  these  remain  ever  after  for  the 
admiration,  the  study,  the  imitation,  of  succeeding 
writers  and  readers  of  that  language.  Such  are  our 
English  classics,  —  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  Addison 
and  Charles  Lamb,  and  many  another.  So  there  are 
classics  of  the  language  of  Art. 

I  attempted  in  the  last  lecture  to  describe  some 
of  the  excellent  beauties  of  the  best  Greek  period,  — • 
the  great  time  of  antique  classic  perfection  of  sculp- 
ture and  architecture ;  and  to-day  I  would  wish  to 
direct  your  attention  to  the  old  masters  and  their 
works,  —  the  classics  of  painting.  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  that  though  the  Art  of  every  age  and 
period  has  its  appropriate  value,  and  is  the  natural 
outcome  of  that  age  and  period,  still  there  have  been 
times  when  one  of  the  great  arts  has  reached  a  per- 
fection never  attained  before  or  since.  And  what  the 
age  of  Pericles  was  for  the  art  of  sculpture,  the  age 
of  Lorenzo  de  Medici  was  for  the  art  of  painting. 

And  —  to  return  to  our  metaphor  —  as  the  literary 
education  of  an  Englishman  both  begins  and  ends 
with  the  study  of  what  are  called  the  classics,  — par 
excellence,  those  of  the  tongues  of  antiquity,  as  well  as 
those  of  his  native  tongue ;  and  he  is  provided  with 
a  sound  knowledge,  from  the  beginning,  of  what  in 
literature  is  of  pure  style  and  in  good  taste,  so  that 
he  is  (or  ought  to  be)  incapable  of  admiring  and 
enjoying  base  or  trifling  or  vulgar  writing :  so  the 
artistic  education  should  begin  and  end  with  the  class- 
ics of  Art.  For  these  do  exist,  undoubted,  acknowl- 


1 66  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

edged,  though — as  is  too  often  the  fate  of  such  things 
—  neglected  and  misunderstood  by  the  generality  of 
people,  who  are  accustomed  to  limit  their  knowledge 
and  study  of  Art  to  the  picture  exhibitions  of  the 
year,  and  the  current  criticism  on  those,  without  hav- 
ing prepared  themselves  in  the  least  degree  by  the 
study  of  the  great  paintings  that  hang  all  the  year 
round  in  the  National  Gallery  or  of  the  great  sculp- 
tures that  stand  all  the  year  round  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. 

It  is  as  if  we  should  limit  our  studies  in  music  to 
Gounod,  to  Sullivan,  to  Offenbach,  and  refuse  to  know 
any  thing  about  Handel  and  Beethoven.  It  is  as  if 
we  should  eschew  Shakspeare,  and  read  nothing  but 
Dickens  and  Ouida.  I  do  not  mean  to  set  apart  these 
as  bad  and  unworthy,  in  contradistinction  to  the  oth- 
ers ;  but  I  mean  to  say,  that  until  we  know  how  to 
enjoy  something  of  the  great  men  and  their  works,  — 
the  classics,  —  we  shall  have  no  means,  no  criterion, 
to  enable  us  to  properly  judge  of  the  rest,  and  appre- 
ciate them  at  their  just  value. 

The  reproach  attending  the  too  great  neglect  and 
ignorance  of  the  great  national  collections  of  Art  be- 
longs more  particularly  to  those  of  us  who  live  in  and 
near  London. 

Yet  some  part  of  it  belongs  to  all  who  pretend  to 
care  for  the  subject  of  Art ;  that  study,  as  well  as  every 
other,  being  so  facilitated  in  these  days  by  good 
copies  and  reproductions  of  great  originals,  and  by 
rapidity  and  ease  of  travelling,  so  that  the  originals 


FINE  ART — PAINTING. 

themselves  are  brought  so  much  the  nearer  to  us.  I 
dare  say  I  am  not  wrong  in  attributing  to  the  gen- 
erality of  people  some  confusion  of  ideas  as  to  the 
old  masters  (as  some  one  says,  often  secretly  identi- 
fied with  the  brown  masters),  or  the  degree  of  merit 
possessed  by  each.  If  people  have  a  tolerably  just 
range  of  notions  respecting  Raphael,  Michael  Angelo, 
Titian,  Leonardo,  I  believe  there  is  rarely  any  honest 
admiration  at  all  corresponding  to  these  notions.  The 
fact  is,  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  untrained  eye  and 
mind  to  admire  the  works  of  these  men  all  at  once. 
It  is  as  if  you  should  set  a  child,  who  had  only  just 
learned  to  read,  to  admire  Hamlet.  And  this  Is  why 
so  many  people  come  back  from  Italy  wearied  with 
the  acres  of  canvases  they  have  glanced  at,  not 
knowing  what  to  look  for  or  how  to  look  at  it.  It  is 
often  more  possible  for  a  sincere  beginner  in  art  to 
enjoy  the  works  of  Bellini,  Botticelli,  Fra  Angelico, 
than  those  of  the  greatest  men  of  all.  But  this  is 
being  on  the  right  track ;  a  genuine  feeling  and  liking 
for  these  forerunners  and  secondary  names  is  sure  to 
lead,  in  the  end,  to  the  more  extended  knowledge  and 
understanding  that  the  first  and  greatest  require. 

The  great  period  of  painting  includes  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  the  first  thirty  or  forty 
years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  contains  all  that 
perfect  painting  that  we  call  the  work  of  the  old  mas- 
ters. This  is  the  sentence  that  is  painted  in  letters  of 
gold  round  the  central  hall  at  the  National  Gallery : 
"  The  works  of  those  who  have  stood  the  test  of  ages 


l68  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

have  a  claim  to  that  respect  and  veneration  to  which 
no  modern  can  pretend."  It  is  a  saying  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  ;  and  it  is  a  good  motto,  in  this  age  of  irrev- 
erence, for  those  who  are  beginning  a  study  of  these 
works.  Let  me  collect  a  few  other  ideas  that  are  also 
necessary  for  the  purpose.  I  have  before  pointed  out, 
that  to  each  of  the  fine  arts  there  is  a  technical,  a 
mechanical  part,  perfection  in  which  is  necessary,  but 
not  all  that  is  necessary,  to  make  the  poet,  the  musi- 
cian, the  architect,  the  sculptor,  the  painter.  He  must 
have  ideas  that  we  could  not  for  ourselves  conceive ; 
and  he  must  express  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
us  see  them  clearly,  and  delight  in  them.  And  this  it 
is  that  the  truly  great  among  the  old  masters  did  :  first, 
they  expressed  clearly  their  intellectual  purpose ;  and 
secondly,  they  had  a  perfect  mastery  over  the  material, 
the  technical  part  of  their  art ;  and  in  these  two  things 
their  greatness  consists. 

You  will  remember  my  pointing  out  that  Raphael's 
"  Dispute  of  the  Sacrament "  is  an  example  of  the  great 
Florentine  school  of  expression,  and  Titian's  "  Flora  " 
an  example  of  the  great  Venetian  school  of  color; 
but  in  the  National  Gallery  there  are  two  pictures, 
equally  representative  of  the  two  great  schools,  which, 
being  nearer  at  hand  than  the  others  in  Continental 
collections,  may  be  more  easily  seen  and  studied. 

Belonging  to  the  Florentine  school  of  expression,  we 
have  the  "Virgin  of  the  Rocks  "  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci : 
it  is  a  newly  acquired  possession,  and,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  a  most  perfect  one.  It  has  some  of  the  painter's 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  169 

characteristic  mystery  of  expression ;  still,  the  very 
spirit  of  a  grave,  sweet  mood  of  childhood  is  in  the 
infant  Christ  as  he  seems  to  give  his  innocent  bene- 
diction to  the  little  kneeling  St.  John,  and  the  mother's 
serene  abstraction  in  her  children  is  in  the  Virgin's 
face.  In  the  foreground,  spring  flowers,  —  narcissus 
and  cyclamen,  —  painted  with  that  curious  felicity  that 
belonged  to  the  hand  of  Leonardo.  For  the  back- 
ground we  have  a  glimpse  of  a  strange  land  of  hollow 
rocks,  and  of  steep  cliffs  rising  perpendicular  from 
clear,  still  water.  "  It  is  the  landscape,"  says  Mr. 
Pater,  "  not  of  dreams,  or  of  fancy,  but  of  places  far 
withdrawn,  and  hours  selected  from  a  thousand  with  a 
miracle  of  finesse.  Through  his  strange  veil  of  sight, 
things  reach  him  so  ;  in  no  ordinary  night  or  day,  but 
as  in  faint  light  of  eclipse,  or  in  some  brief  interval 
of  falling  rain  at  daybreak,  or  through  deep  water." 
Here  is  a  painter  who  can  indeed  do  what  Goethe 
required :  "  Make  me  feel,"  he  says,  "  what  I  have 
not  yet  felt;  make  me  think  what  I  have  not  yet 
thought :  then  I  will  praise  you." 

For  the  Venetian  school  of  color  let  us  take,  as  the 
crowning  example  in  the  National  Gallery,  Titian's 
"  Bacchus  and  Ariadne."  And  let  me  say,  that  for  me 
it  will  always  be  the  ideal  painting,  as  the  Venus  of 
Melos  is  the  ideal  sculpture,  —  the  one  that  first  re- 
vealed to  me  the  wonderful  delight  that  it  is  possible 
to  receive  from  a  picture  that  is  at  once  perfect  in 
color,  in  design,  in  sentiment.  I  should  think  myself 
happy  if  I  could  do  something  to  persuade  any  one 


I/O  LECTURES   ON  ART. 

who  has  not  yet  enjoyed  the  great  beauty  of  this  pic- 
ture to  go  and  look  at  it,  and  feel  once  for  all  what 
the  art  of  painting  at  its  best  can  do.  Once  feel  this, 
and  you  know  more  than  all  the  treatises  and  criti- 
cisms and  lectures  on  Art  in  the  world  can  teach  you. 

In  one  of  the  other  rooms  in  the  National  Gallery 
are  two  pictures,  by  modern  hands,  which  are  a  great 
contrast  to  these.  It  is  from  no  wish  to  run  down,  to 
depreciate,  the  work  of  our  own  time,  or  to  go  about 
to  exalt  ancient  Art  at  the  expense  of  modern,  but  to 
enforce  a  general  universal  truth,  that  I  would  ask  you 
— after  honestly  trying  to  see  for  yourselves  and  appre- 
ciate something  of  the  beauty  of  the  Titian  and  the 
Leonardo — to  go  to  the  other  end  of  the  Gallery,  and 
look  at  Mr.  Maclise's  "  Play-scene  in  Hamlet,"  and 
Mr.  Frith's  "  Derby  Day ;  "  and  if  you  do  not  feel  the 
triviality,  the  staginess,  of  the  ideas  expressed  and 
personages  represented  in  them,  and  the  feebleness 
and  poverty  of  the  color,  at  least  it  would  be  well  to 
exactly  inquire  what  you  do  feel  about  them,  and  of 
what  the  vast  gulf  of  difference  between  these  and 
those  consists.  To  those  who  cannot  feel  it,  it  is  in- 
deed useless  to  speak  of  the  old  masters. 

But,  leaving  any  further  mention  of  the  rest  of  the 
treasures  contained  in  the  national  collection,  let  us 
take  a  more  general  view  of  the  subject,  and  try  and 
inquire  into  the  causes  and  the  nature  of  the  excel- 
lence of  painting  at  the  period  of  the  Renaissance. 

And  as  to  the  history  of  painting  generally.  As 
far  as  our  present  purpose  is  concerned,  we  must  pass 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  I? I 

over  whatever  is  said  of  the  excellence  of  the  painters 
of  antiquity,  of  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great  and 
of  a  time  still  earlier ;  because,  whatever  has  been 
recorded  in  their  praise  by  ancient  writers,  there  is  no 
really  substantial  witness  of  their  excellence,  at  least 
as  compared  with  the  later  period  of  which  I  am 
speaking  to-day ;  we  must  pass  over  early  Christian 
Art,  though  by  it  certain  religious  types  were  created, 
since  scarcely  deviated  from ;  we  must  pass  over  the 
Byzantine  mosaics  and  frescos;  and  finally,  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  we  come  to  the  name  of  Cimabue, 
the  original  founder  of  the  Florentine  school. 

Following  him  come  Giotto  and  Orgagna  in  the 
fourteenth  century;  Masaccio,  Lippi,  Botticelli,  Fra 
Angelico,  Perugino,  Francia,  Signorelli,  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  These  men  were  forerunners  of  the  great 
time,  working  through  the  years  that  preceded  it,  — 
years  of  preparation,  of  struggle  with  incompleteness 
of  resources,  of  stretching  out  and  reaching  towards 
perfection.  The  Renaissance  came  at  last  suddenly, 
after  centuries  of  ignorance,  of  barbarism,  of  sterile 
effort :  it  burst  forth  almost  without  a  dawn,  glorious 
as  a  summer's  day.  Dante  and  Giotto  open  that  glori- 
ous era,  and  re-create  the  arts  of  poetry  and  of  paint- 
ing. After  them  quickly  crowd  in  the  other  great 
workers  in  the  arts :  Brunelleschi  designs  beautiful 
architecture  at  Florence ;  Ghiberti  casts  his  great 
bronze  gates.  And,  too,  at  the  same  time,  Columbus 
discovers  a  new  world ;  Copernicus  demonstrates  the 
laws  of  the  universe ;  Guttenberg  invents  the  art  of 


LECTURES  ON  ART. 

printing ;  and  Luther  and  Savonarola  work  their  great 
work  of  reformation ;  and  finally,  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  come  also  to  adorn  with  their 
transcendent  works  this  great  blossoming  epoch  of 
human  genius  and  force. 

"  For  us,"  says  Mr.  Pater,  "  the  Renaissance  is  the 
name  of  a  many-sided  but  yet  united  movement,  in 
which  the  love  of  the  things  of  the  intellect  and  the 
imagination  for  their  own  sake,  the  desire  for  a  more 
comely  and  liberal  way  of  conceiving  life,  make  them- 
selves felt,  prompting  those  who  experience  this  desire, 
to  seek  first  one  and  then  another  means  of  intellect- 
ual or  imaginative  enjoyment,  and  directing  them  not 
merely  to  the  discovery  of  old  and  forgotten  sources 
of  this  enjoyment,  but  to  divine  new  sources  of  it,  new 
experiences,  new  subjects  of  beauty,  new  forms  of  Art." 

The  conditions  under  which  the  great  Art  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries  was  produced  are  not 
quite  dissimilar  to  those  of  the  Greek  period.  The 
Renaissance,  in  calling  men  to  the  study  of  the  Greek 
mind,  taught  them  at  the  same  time  Greek  tastes  and 
ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  The  care  for  physical 
beauty,  which  had  been  deadened  by  the  ascetic  teach- 
ing of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  revived ;  the  pre-occupa- 
tion  with  the  beauty  of  the  common  things  of  life,  and 
the  liking  for  polish  of  manner,  and  dignity  of  bearing, 
re-appeared  :  only  all  these  things  were  accompanied 
by  magnificence  and  profusion,  luxury  and  splendor, 
greater  than  the  world  has  known  before  or  since. 
We  have,  in  Geprge  Eliot's  "  Romola,"  a  picture  of 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  l?$ 

Florentine  life  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, when  classical  learning  and  splendid  living  seem  to 
have  been  the  rule  under  the  Medici :  but,  under  its 
superficial  vanity  and  caprice,  there  seems  to  have  lain 
a  certain  old-world  modesty,  and  seriousness,  and  sim- 
plicity ;  and  beyond  the  care  for  outward  beauty  was 
a  still  greater  care  for  the  unseen  beauty  of  the  mind, 
the  intellect,  the  heart.  And  so  it  came  about,  that  the 
Florentine  was  the  school  of  truth  of  mental  expres- 
sion. I  may  mention,  that  of  Piero  di  Cosimo,  the 
painter  who  is  so  vividly  described  in  "  Romola,"  there 
is  one  example  in  the  National  Gallery,  "  The  Death 
of  Procris."  A  Satyr  stoops  pityingly  over  the  girl's 
fallen  figure,  and  touches  her  shoulder  with  a  pathetic 
compassion  in  his  rough  woodland  face.  This  touch 
of  feeling  marks  the  painter  as  a  true  worker  in  the 
school  of  expression  ;  being,  as  he  was,  a  contemporary 
of  the  three  great  masters  in  that  school,  —  Leonardo, 
Michael  Angelo,  Raphael. 

Let  me  sketch  for  you,  however  slightly,  a  rapid 
portrait  of  each  of  these  three. 

To  all  who  care  for  the  art,  and  indeed  the  general 
history,  of  the  time,  Leonardo  da  Vinci  must  be  one  of 
the  most  interesting  figures  of  the  whole  brilliant  group 
of  gifted  men  of  that  day.  He  possessed  every  physi- 
cal endowment  of  strength  and  beauty,  every  mental 
perfection  of  power  and  insight  and  imagination. 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  part  of  the  intellectual 
learning  of  the  time  that  he  did  not  explore,  no  part 
of  the  arts  of  mechanism,  of  decoration,  of  engineering, 


174  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

that  he  was  not  master  of,  as  well  as  of  every  one 
of  the  higher  arts  of  human  expression,  —  poetry  and 
painting  and  sculpture,  architecture  and  music.  And 
in  him  all  this  versatility  of  universal  genius  begets  a 
mysterious  element  of  mockery,  of  restlessness,  of  cu- 
riosity, leading  him  to  seek  after  all  kinds  of  remote 
knowledge  ;  to  portray  strange  subtleties  of  expression, 
—  the  unearthly,  the  terrible,  the  grotesque  ;  to  be  for- 
ever trying  some  new  method  of  arriving  at  perfection. 
And  this  element  it  is  which  makes  him  and  his  work 
so  interesting,  so  fascinating.  No  one  who  has  looked 
at  the  pictures  in  the  Louvre  can  have  failed  to  be  at- 
tracted, puzzled,  fascinated,  by  "  La  Gioconda,"  —  that 
strange  woman's  face  with  its  mysterious  expression  of 
mockery  and  of  wisdom  ;  a  face  not  beautiful  accord- 
ing to  any  modern  acknowledged  type  of  beauty,  and 
yet  possessing  a  quality  with  as  strong  an  influence. 
This  was  the  type  that  attracted  Leonardo,  —  power 
and  subtlety  of  expression,  rather  than  fixed  standard 
of  beauty.  It  was  at  Milan  he  painted  the  "  Last 
Supper,"  '  the  most  renowned  of  his  works.  All  that 
remains  of  it  is  on  the  walls  of  the  refectory  of 
the  Dominican  Church  at  Milan,  whither  Leonardo 
had  gone  in  1483  at  the  invitation  of  Ludovico  Sfor^a. 
Photographs  show  you  its  present  state ;  and,  even 
thus  defaced,  it  is  better  to  learn  what  we  can  from 
what  is  left  of  the  master's  actual  work  than  to  accept 
the  smooth  insipidities  of  the  engraved  or  lithographed 
restoration  that  is  common.  Our  Royal  Academy 

1  See  heading  of  chapter. 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  175 

possesses  the  best  copy  of  the  picture,  done  from  the 
original  by  a  contemporary  hand.  "  About  the  '  Last 
Supper,'  its  decay  and  restorations,"  says  Mr.  Pater, 
"  a  whole  literature  has  risen  up,  Goethe's  pensive 
sketch  of  its  sad  fortunes  being  far  the  best.  The 
death,  in  childbirth,  of  the  Duchess  Beatrice,  was  fol- 
lowed in  Ludovico  by  one  of  those  paroxysms  of  reli- 
gions feeling  which  in  him  were  constitutional.  The 
low,  gloomy  Dominican  Church  of  St.  Mary  of  the 
Graces  had  been  the  favorite  shrine  of  Beatrice.  She 
had  spent  her  last  days  there,  full  of  sinister  presenti- 
ments ;  at  last  it  had  been  almost  necessary  to  remove 
her  from  it  by  force ;  and  now  it  was  here  that  mass 
was  said  a  hundred  times  a  day  for  her  repose.  On 
the  damp  wall  of  the  refectory,  oozing  with  mineral 
salts,  Leonardo  painted  the  'Last  Supper.'  A  hun- 
dred anecdotes  were  told  about  it,  his  re-touchings  and 
delays.  They  show  him  refusing  to  work  except  at  the 
moment  of  invention,  scornful  of  whoever  thought  that 
Art  was  a  work  of  mere  industry  and  rule,  often  com- 
ing the  whole  length  of  Milan  to  give  a  single  touch. 
He  painted  it,  not  in  fresco,  where  all  must  be  im- 
promptu, but  in  oils ;  the  new  method  which  he  had 
been  one  of  the  first  to  welcome,  because  it  allowed 
of  so  many  after- thoughts,  so  refined  a  working-out  of 
perfection.  It  turned  out  that  on  a  plastered  wall  no 
piocess  could  have  been  less  durable. 

"  Within  fifty  years  it  had  fallen  into  decay.  .  .  . 
It  was  another  effort  to  set  a  given  subject  out  of  the 
range  of  its  conventional  associations.  Strange,  after 


IJ6  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

all  the  misrepresentations  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was 
the  effort  to  see  it,  not  as  the  pale  host  of  the  altar, 
but  as  one  taking  leave  of  his  friends.  Five  years 
afterwards  the  young  Raphael,  at  Florence,  painted  it 
with  sweet  and  solemn  effect  in  the  refectory  of  Saint 
Onofrid,  but  still  with  all  the  mystical  unreality  of  the 
school  of  Perugino.  Vasari  pretends  that  the  central 
head  was  never  finished ;  but  finished  or  unfinished, 
or  owing  part  of  its  effect  to  a  mellowing  decay, 
this  central  head  does  but  consummate  the  senti- 
ment of  the  whole  company,  —  ghosts  through  which 
you  see  the  wall,  faint  as  the  shadows  of  the  leaves 
upon  the  wall  on  autumn  afternoons,  this  figure  is 
but  the  faintest,  most  spectral  of  them  all."  So 
says  Mr.  Pater ;  but  faint  and  spectral  as  it  is,  it  is 
the  outward  type  of  Christ,  fixed  for  us  by  Leonardo, 
as  it  has  been  presented  to  us  by  all  the  succeeding 
generations ;  so  that  our  mental  image  of  him  is  asso- 
ciated inseparably  with  the  clear  oval  countenance, 
the  long  hair  parted  in  the  middle,  the  expression 
of  sweet  and  pensive  benignity.  Besides  the  imper- 
fection of  the  methods  of  the  painter,  and  the  damp- 
ness of  the  walls,  the  picture  has  suffered  every  kind 
of  misfortune  and  indignity :  it  has  been  restored ; 
the  monks  cut  a  door  through  the  lower  part  of  it ; 
the  imperial  arms  were  nailed  on  it,  close  to  the 
central  figure ;  and  Austrian  and  French  soldiers,  in 
turn,  vied  with  each  other  in  desecrating  the  place, 
and  destroying  its  chief  treasure. 

"  Leonardo's  life  has  three  divisions,  —  thirty  years 


FINE  ART — FAINTING. 

at  Florence ;  nearly  twenty  at  Milan ;  then  nineteen 
years  of  wandering,  till  he  sinks  to  rest  under  the 
protection  of  Francis  I.  at  the  Chateau  de  Clou." 

And  now  let  me  say  a  few  words  about  Michael 
Angelo,  a  genius  of  more  power,  but  of  less  familiar 
sweetness.  Less  sympathetic,  and  more  rugged  and 
difficult,  are  his  works  than  those  of  either  Raphael 
or  Leonardo.  Architect,  sculptor,  poet,  and  painter, 

—  a  man  with  four  souls,  as  said  a  writer  of  his  time, 

—  Michael  Angelo  is  the  central  figure  of  the   first 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and   seems  almost  to 
monopolize  its  creative  power.     A  story  is  told  of  his 
early  youth,  that  one  winter  night,  when  the  snow  lay 
in  the  court  of  the   Pitti   Palace,   Piero   de   Medici 
caused  him  to  mould  out  of  the  snow  a  statue  of  a 
faun  (that  woodland  creature  of  the   antique  fancy, 
half  man,  half  goat),  and  then  criticised  it  by  observing 
that  the  head  had  too  young  an  air  for  the  faun,  who 
was  supposed  to  have  ranged  the  woods  for  centuries. 
With  a  touch,  Michael  Angelo  hollowed  a  tooth  from 
its  jaw,  giving  at  once  the  look  of  age  that  was  wanted. 
"  Something,"  says  Mr.  Pater,  "  of  the  wasting  of  that 
snow-image  lurks  about  all  his  sculpture,  —  a  certain 
incompleteness,  as  if  the  half-hewn  form  had  never 
quite  emerged  from  the  rough-hewn  stone."     And  in 
his  painting,  there  is  something  of  the  same  quality. 
In  it  there  are  no  lovely  natural  objects  like  Leonardo's, 
but  only  blank  ranges  of  rock,  and  dim  vegetable  forms 
as  blank  as  they ;  no  lovely  draperies,  or  comely  ges- 
tures of  life,  but  only  the  austere  truths  of  human 


LECTURES  ON  ART. 

nature  :  "  simple  persons,"  as  he  replied,  in  his  rough 
way,  to  the  querulous  criticism  of  Julius  II.,  that  there 
was  no  gold  on  the  figures  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  "  sim- 
ple persons,  who  wore  no  gold  on  their  garments."  — 
"  You  should  put  a  little  gold  on  them,"  said  the 
Pope  :  "  my  chapel  will  look  very  poor."  But  Michael 
Angelo  answered,  "  The  people  I  have  painted  there 
•were  poor."  This,  the  painting  of  the  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  was  his  great  work.  The  long  central 
surface  contains  the  great  scenes  of  Genesis,  from  the 
Creation  to  the  Deluge. 

"  Fair  as  the  young  men  of  the  Elgin  marbles,  the 
Adam  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  is  unlike  them  in  a  total 
absence  of  that  balance  and  completeness  which  ex- 
presses so  well  the  sentiment  of  a  self-contained,  inde- 
pendent life.  In  that  languid  figure,  there  is  something 
rough  and  Satyr-like,  —  something  akin  to  the  rough 
hillside  on  which  it  lies.  His  whole  form  is  gathered 
into  an  expression  of  mere  expectation  and  reception  : 
he  has  hardly  strength  enough  to  lift  his  finger  to  touch 
the  finger  of  the  Creator ;  yet  a  touch  of  the  finger- 
tips will  suffice." 

In  the  triangular  compartments  of  the  vault  were  the 
prophets  and  the  sibyls,  and  those  different  voices  of 
the  past  who  prophesied  of  the  coming  of  Messiah  ;  and 
in  the  corners,  the  stories  of  the  four  great  deliverances 
of  Israel.  We  have  no  finished  picture  of  Michael 
Angelo's  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  altogether 
his  work  seems  more  removed  and  difficult  of  appre- 
hension than  that  of  the  other  two  of  the  Florentine 


FINE   ART — PAINTING.  l8l 

school.  His  colossal  Titanic  works  are  sometimes 
half-formed  in  their  grandeur,  as  if  his  world  were  in 
the  very  process  of  creation.  The  splendor  and  terror 
of  his  conceptions  seemed  to  heighten  and  deepen  as 
his  age  advanced.  He  was  sixty  when  he  painted  his 
terrible  picture  of  the  "  Last  Judgment ;  "  and  in  1546 
he  undertook  to  finish  the  rebuilding  of  St.  Peter's 
at  Rome,  and  made  the  design  for  the  dome  which 
overshadows  in  its  grandeur  the  Eternal  City,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-two,  and  "  for  nothing,"  as  he  said, 
"  but  the  honor  of  God."  The  colossal  figures  of 
David  and  of  Moses,  and  the  figures  on  the  tombs 
of  the  Medici- at  Florence,  these  are  the  greatest  of  his 
works.  The  "  Pieta  "  at  Rome,  carved  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  —  a  dead  Christ  lying  across  his  mother's 
knees,  —  speaks  all  the  professed  religious  feeling  that 
pervaded  his  mind  and  work  from  first  to  last. 

Very  different  from  the  severe  and  stern  genius 
of  Michael  Angelo,  was  the  graceful  and  gentle  one  of 
Raphael,  who,  of  the  three  great  Florentines,  is  the 
one  most  familiar  to  us  all,  and  his  works  most  widely 
understood  and  admired.  He  was  the  latest  born  and 
youngest  of  the  three.  Though  his  first  master  was 
Perugino  the  Umbrian,  and  though  his  first  and  last 
years  were  spent  at  Rome,  —  his  greatest  works  being 
to  be  seen  there,  —  yet  it  is  to  Florence  that  Raphael 
truly  belongs.  It  was  during  two  residences  in  Flor- 
ence that  he  learned  all  that  it  behooved  him  to  learn 
from  Leonardo  and  Michael  Angelo :  his  genius  had 
its  own  path  to  tread.  His  life  and  his  character  from 


1 82  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

the  first  seem  to  have  had  a  serenity,  a  harmony,  a 
happiness,  that  were  denied  to  the  others.  In  a  vir- 
tuous and  refined  home,  governed  by  tender  and  in- 
telligent parents,  and  guided  in  habits  of  truth  and 
of  industry,  Raphael  grew  up  ;  and  it  is,  no  doubt,  to 
these  early  influences  that  the  peculiar  sweetness  and 
purity  of  his  work  are  owing.  He  had  not  the  crea- 
tive energy  of  Michael  Angelo,  nor  the  subtilty  or  the 
fascination  of  Leonardo  ;  but  a  sensibility,  a  charm,  a 
felicity,  of  his  own,  —  a  kind  of  happy  intelligence  of 
temperament  that  communicated  itself  to  his  works. 
The  small  pictures,  two  of  them  Madonnas,  in  the 
National  Gallery,  express  perfectly  these  characteris- 
tics ;  and  so  do  the  well-known,  often-reproduced 
Madonna  of  the  Dresden  Gallery,  the  Holy  Family 
of  the  Louvre,  and  many  others.  I  have  in  a  former 
lecture  mentioned  the  paintings  of  the  Vatican  which 
he  was  commissioned  to  do  by  Pope  Julius  II.,  of 
which  the  "  Dispute  of  the  Sacrament  "  is  one.  In 
the  National  Gallery  we  have  Raphael's  portrait  of 
Pope  Julius  :  the  irascible  old  man  is  painted  with  a 
noble  and  pathetic  simplicity.  Julius's  successor,  Leo 
X.,  was  even  more  urgent  in  the  tasks  he  gave  the 
artist ;  and  the  ten  cartoons  for  tapestries  were  ex- 
ecuted at  his  bidding.  The  tapestries  were  woven  at 
Arras  in  Flanders,  after  his  designs,  and  were  intended 
for  the  walls  of  the  Sistine  Chapel :  they  are  now 
in  the  Vatican.  We  possess  seven  of  the  original 
cartoons,  which  are  now  at  the  South  Kensington 
Museum.  "  The  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,"  "  The 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  183 

Consignment  of  the  Keys  to  Peter,"  "  The  Curing  of 
the  Lame  Man,"  "  The  Death  of  Ananias,"  "  The  Ston- 
ing of  Stephen,"  "The  Conversion  of  St.  Paul,"  "The 
Punishment  of  Elymas  the  Sorcerer,"  "The  Preaching 
of  St.  Paul  at  Athens,"  "The  Preaching  of  St.  Paul  at 
Lystra,"  and  "Paul  a  Prisoner  at  Philippi,"  —  these 
are  the  ten  original  subjects  ;  and  all  of  them  are 
familiar  to  every  one  in  the  numerous  engravings,  draw- 
ings, lithographs,  photographs.  Let  me  take  this  op- 
portunity of  saying,  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  learn 
to  distinguish  between  a  photograph  from  a  drawing 
or  engraving,  and  a  photograph  taken  directly  from 
the  picture  itself :  the  former  having  no  value  save  as 
an  easy  reproduction  of  a  copy,  —  the  translation  of 
a  translation  ;  the  photograph  taken  directly  from  a 
picture  being  the  nearest  practicable  approach,  save  in 
respect  of  color,  to  the  artist's  work,  and  should  always 
be  chosen  in  preference  to  the  other  kinds.  A  little 
careful  observation  will  soon  make  the  difference  clear  : 
compare  the  little  highly  finished  "  Last  Supper  "  with 
the  one  from  the  original.  If  we  have  learned  to 
value  a  master's  work,  we  shall  like  it  best  as  it  really 
is,  however  unfinished  or  injured,  and  not  want  to  go 
to  the  clever  engraver  or  French  lithographer  to  make 
it  all  smooth  and  clean  for  us. 

In  Florence,  in  1504,  Michael  Angelo  competed 
with  Leonardo  in  a  design  for  the  decoration  of  the 
walls  of  the  great  council-chamber.  And  Michael 
Angelo  was  twenty-seven  years  old,  Leonardo  more 
than  fifty,  when  Raphael,  then  nineteen  years  old, 


1 84  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

visiting  Florence  for  the  first  time,  came  and  watched 
them  as  they  worked.  And  so  do  the  three  great  names 
of  the  Florentine  school  come  together  in  history ;  and 
so  together  should  they  be  remembered,  with  all  else 
about  their  lives  and  minds  and  works  that  I  must 
leave  here  untold. 

Now  to  dwell  for  a  short  time  on  the  characteristics 
of  the  Venetian  school  of  painting,  at  the  head  of 
which  stand  the  great  names  of  Titian  and  Giorgione, 
Tintoret,  and  Paul  Veronese.  Color  was  the  great 
element  of  their  power  in  painting,  and  on  this  point 
it  is  not  easy  to  say  much.  Form  and  expression  may 
more  easily  be  discussed  and  described.  And  here  I 
may  perhaps  pause  to  say,  that  form  or  expression  and 
color  are  seldom,  if  ever,  found  united  in  highest  ex- 
cellence in  a  work  of  art.  If  a  masterpiece  of  Athe- 
nian sculpture  were  to  be  colored,  it  would  lose  instead 
of  gain  by  the  addition.  "  The  use  of  color  in  sculp- 
ture," says  Mr.  Pater,  "  is  but  an  unskilful  contrivance 
to  effect  by  borrowing  from  another  art  what  the 
nobler  sculpture  effected  by  strictly  appropriate  means. 
To  get  not  color,  but  the  equivalent  of  color,  to  se- 
cure the  expression  and  the  play  of  life,"  —  this  is  the 
problem  of  sculpture,  whose  aims  therefore  are  per- 
fectly distinct  from  those  of  painting ;  so,  only  with 
a  less  strongly  marked  difference,  do  the  two  great 
schools  of  painting  stand  apart.  The  Florentine,  hav- 
ing for  its  first  object  expression  of  character  and  emo- 
tion, does  not  excel  in  splendid  effects  of  light  and 
shade  and  color ;  while  the  Venetian,  aiming  first  at 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  185 

those  latter  qualities,  has  small  range  of  character  and 
subject,  and  little  variety  of  emotion  and  expression ; 
so  that  it  is  easy  to  keep  the  two  schools  distinct  in 
the  mind,  and  easy  to  perceive  their  different  charac- 
teristics. 

The  Venetians  found  the  elements  of  their  glowing 
effects  of  color  in  the  realities  of  their  every-day  life, — 
an  enchanted  life  of  wealth,  profusion,  and  pageantry. 
A  glittering  vision  of  the  most  glorious  earthly  splen- 
dor rises  in  the  mind  as  we  think  of  the  Venice  of 
those  days,  —  the  sixteenth-century  Venice,  the  centre 
of  Italian  wealth  and  culture,  the  seat  of  the  greatest 
maritime  power  in  the  world,  the  storehouse  of  all  that 
was  rich  and  precious  from  the  eastern  and  western 
hemispheres ,  Venice,  her  people  excelling  in  pa- 
geants, and  feasts,  and  music ;  famed  for  her  carved 
and  painted  marriage  coffers,  her  mirrors,  her  bro- 
cades —  scarlet  and  purple  and  crimson,  like  the  dyes 
of  ancient  Tyre ;  for  the  richest  of  point-lace ;  for 
stamped  and  gilded  leather ;  for  mosaics,  in  wood  of 
different  colors,  and  in  stone  of  agate,  carnelian,  ame- 
thyst, and  many-hued  marble ;  cabinets  of  ebony, 
alabaster,  or  ivory,  with  gold  and  silver  figures  inlaid 
with  carnelian,  jasper,  heliotrope,  lapis-lazuli,  and 
agate.  All  this  seems  a  gorgeous  and  fitting  setting 
for  those  glowing  gems  of  painting  that  the  Venetians 
have  left  to  us ;  the  glory  of  their  coloring  no  doubt 
in  some  respects  dimmed  by  time,  but  also  ripened  and 
mellowed.  A  great  tranquillity,  majesty,  dignity,  fill 
their  canvases,  and  sink  deep  into  the  mind  as  we 


186  LECTURES   OAr  ART. 

gaze  at  them.  Such  is  the  "  Bacchus  and  Ariadne  " 
of  Titian,  which  I  have  already  described  ;  and  such 
is  Veronese's  "  Family  of  Darius,"  and  the  "  St.  Hel- 
ena." These  are  in  the  National  Gallery.  And  such 
also  is  Veronese's  "  Marriage  in  Cana  "  at  the  Louvre. 
"  There,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  you  have  the  most  perfect 
representation  possible  of  color  and  light  and  shade, 
as  they  affect  the  external  aspect  of  the  human  form 
and  its  immediate  accessories,  —  architecture,  furniture, 
and  dress.  This  external  aspect  of  noblest  nature  was 
the  first  aim  of  the  Venetians,  and  all  their  greatness 
depended  on  their  resolution  to  achieve  and  their 
patience  in  achieving  it." 

And  in  these  schools  and  the  works  of  these  masters 
is  expressed  the  fulness  of  the  Renaissance  spirit.  Mr. 
Symonds,  in  his  History  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy, 
bids  us  mark  the  character  of  each.  "  Leonardo,"  he 
says,  "  is  the  wizard  or  diviner :  to  him  the  Renais- 
sance offers  her  mystery  and  lends  her  magic.  Raphael 
is  the  Phoebean  singer:  to  "him  the  Renaissance  re- 
veals her  joy,  and  dowers  him  with  the  gift  of  melody. 
Michael  Angelo  is  the  prophet  and  sibylline  seer :  to 
him  the  Renaissance  discloses  the  travail  of  her  spirit ; 
him  she  indues  with  power ;  he  wrests  her  secret,  — 
voyaging,  like  an  ideal  Columbus,  the  vast  abyss  of 
thought  alone."  And  to  the  Renaissance  the  Venetian 
masters  lent  their  splendor  of  color,  their  love  of  phys- 
ical beauty,  and  of  all  costly  and  beautiful  things  of  the 
world.  So  in  all  these  magnificent  conditions  the  great 
period  of  painting  culminated  and  was  made  perfect. 


FINE  ART—  PAINTING.  1 87 

I  can  say  no  word  of  what  then  followed  :  it  seems 
better  at  this  time  to  think  only  of  the  best  work  and 
of  the  best  men.  Correggio  is  the  last  of  the  great 
Italian  painters  ;  and  even  in  him  there  is  something 
of  sentimentality,  of  conscious  charm,  —  something  of 
that  decadence  with  which  the  names  of  the  Caracci, 
Guiclo  Reni,  Salvator  Rosa,  and  many  another  must  be 
associated.  To  other  countries  or  other  times  belong 
Velasquez,  Vandyck,  Rubens,  Claude,  and  Rembrandt, 
of  the  first  rank,  or  nearly  the  first  rank,  each  in  his 
different  way.  And  the  Dutch  and  the  French  schools, 
too,  have  their  peculiar  excellence.  But  this  is  all  I 
have  attempted  to  do,  —  to  distinguish  as  clearly  as 
possible  the  two  great  schools,  the  Florentine  and  the 
Venetian ;  to  sketch  something  of  the  character  of 
the  aims  and  tendencies  of  the  three  great  Florentine 
masters,  Leonardo,  Michael  Angelo,  and  Raphael. 

It  is  by  some  little  preparation  of  this  kind  that  one 
may  be  led  to  enjoy  any  opportunity  that  offers  of 
seeing  any  of  their  works,  especially  our  own  posses- 
sions in  the  National  Gallery,  —  possessions  in  which, 
though  they  are  called  national,  we  cannot  truly  be 
said  to  have  a  share,  unless  we  understand  something, 
not  only  of  their  various  homes  and  periods,  but  also 
of  the  more  universal  kingdom  of  Art  which  includes 
them  all. 

May  I  recommend  a  few  books  on  this  especial 
branch  of  my  subject,  to  any  of  my  hearers  interested 
in  following  it  up  ? 

"  The  History  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy,"  by  J. 


1 88  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

A.  Symonds  (the  third  volume  is  devoted  to  the  Fine 
Arts) ;  a  little  handbook  of  "  Classic  and  Italian  Paint- 
ing," edited  by  Mr.  Poynter,  R.A.,  is  an  excellent 
introduction  to  the  subject ;  "  Studies  in  the  Renais- 
sance," by  Mr.  Pater,  is  a  most  delightful  book  for  the 
more  advanced  student ;  and  a  sketch  by  M.  Clement, 
of  the  lives  of  the  three  great  Florentines,  contains  all 
that  is  certainly  known  of  their  lives,  and  is  full  of 
interest  and  charm. 

I  find  myself,  much  against  my  will,  obliged  to  give 
up  for  the  present  any  attempt  to  speak  of  the  Eng- 
lish masters,  —  of  Hogarth,  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
of  Gainsborough,  of  Richard  Wilson,  of  Turner.  There 
has  been  no  English  school,  properly  so  called.  De- 
tached great  names  we  have  had,  such  as  those  I  have 
just  mentioned,  but  no  school ' :  so  that  the  history  of 
painting  in  England  would  merely  mean  a  study  of 
each  of  these  men  taken  separately,  and  their  works ; 
and  for  this  there  is  no  time.  I  will  now  only  attempt 
a  few  general  remarks  on  the  prevailing  feeling  and 
commonly  expressed  opinion  regarding  the  art  of  paint- 
ing, and  its  productions,  at  the  present  day. 

As  I  have  said  before,  we  are  all  ready,  at  any  time 
and  at  the  shortest  notice,  to  form  an  opinion  and 
deliver  a  judgment,  a  criticism,  respecting  a  picture, 
without  greatly  caring  whether  that  judgment,  that 
opinion,  is  a  right  and  just  one.  I  have  already  warned 
you  that  the  power  of  arriving  at  a  just  judgment,  a 
right  taste  in  art,  is  not  born  with  us ;  but  it  must  be 
acquired  by  study  and  pains  and  observation.  Once 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  189 

started  on  the  right  road,  every  piece  of  new  experi- 
ence is  certain  to  be  a  confirmation  of  all  that  has 
gone  before.  I  repeat,  that,  in  every  department  of 
human  industry,  we  must  recognize  that  it  is  not 
enough  to  know  what  we  like,  but  what  is  worth  lik- 
ing ;  and,  above  all  things,  this  is  necessary  to  a  right 
enjoyment  of  painting. 

I  suppose  that  no  house,  from  the  poorest  to  the 
richest,  but  has  something  on  its  walls  in  the  sem- 
blance of  a  picture ;  but  not  all  the  people  who  pos- 
sess that  something  —  very  few  of  them,  I  am  afraid 
—  have  ever  thought  much  about  why  they  have  it, 
whether  they  like  it,  what  it  expresses  to  them,  what 
ideas  it  suggests,  what  qualities  it  possesses.  A  picture 
may  be  treasured  for  its  commercial  value,  for  its  as- 
sociations, for  its  real  or  supposed  resemblance  to  a 
beloved  person  or  place,  for  its  representation  of  a 
dramatic  scene  or  incident  out  of  a  book  or  in  real 
life ;  or  it  may  have  been  handed  down  for  a  family 
generation  or  two,  and  may  have  remained  in  sight 
from  earliest  childhood,  so  that  it  is  as  familiar  as  the 
wall  on  which  it  hangs,  and  suggests  as  few  ideas :  we 
should  miss  it  if  it  were  gone,  but  that  is  all.  A  pic- 
ture ought  to  do  more  than  this.  We  may  have  any  or 
all  these  reasons  for  liking  it,  and  yet  it  may  possess 
no  artistic  quality  whatever. 

Every  year,  with  the  flowers  of  spring,  bloom  some 
hundreds,  nay  thousands,  of  pictures  in  the  London 
exhibitions  :  in  other  places  they  appear  later  in  the 
summer  or  the  autumn.  They  flourish  for  a  month  or 


LECTURES  ON  ART. 

two,  weathering  the  cold  blast  of  criticism,  or  basking 
in  the  sunshine  of  public  favor,  or  withering  under  the 
general  neglect.  At  the  end  of  the  season  they  are 
gathered  by  purchasers  to  be  transplanted  into  private 
collections,  or  they  return  into  the  hands  of  their  ori- 
ginators :  in  any  case,  for  the  most  part,  they  disappear, 
forgotten  by  the  world  at  large ;  and  their  successors 
year  after  year  bloom  and  pass  away  in  like  manner. 
Every  one  would  feel  a  strange  want  if  the  season 
brought  no  show  of  pictures :  it  would  seem  like  an 
interruption  of  the  course  of  nature.  They  are  a  ne- 
cessity of  social  life,  a  safe  theme  for  discussion,  a 
fruitful  subject  of  small-talk.  And  these  assemblages 
of  pictures  —  but  for  about  a  score  or  two  which  do 
possess  some  originality  of  treatment  or  some  remark- 
able power  of  execution  —  might  consist  of  the  very 
same  pictures  year  after  year,  such  is  the  similarity  of 
their  subject,  the  constant  repetition  of  the  same  man- 
ner, the  same  ideal.  Who  does  not  know  of  old  the 
portrait  of  a  lady  in  red  velvet  or  white  satin,  on  a 
terrace  ;  the  official  gentleman  with  his  arm-chair  and 
inkstand ;  the  flower-pieces  ;  the  fruit-pieces  ;  the  cot- 
tage interiors ;  scenes  of  domestic  happiness  or  afflic- 
tion ?  There  must  be  a  large  demand  for  these  things, 
or  there  could  not  be  so  abundant  a  supply.  In  all  of 
them,  the  artist,  it  seems  to  me,  makes  himself  into  a 
sort  of  shopman.  The  public  wants  these  articles,  and 
he  supplies  them  accordingly :  every  year,  so  many 
baskets  of  fruit  and  flowers,  so  many  acres  of  Welsh 
or  Scotch  or  Swiss  scenery,  so  many  yards  of  satin 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  191 

and  lace,  so  much  fashionable  attire,  and  so  much 
sentiment  and  domestic  affection. 

If  people  must  have  these  things  to  cover  their 
walls  with,  simply  as  part  of  the  furniture  of  a  room, 
let  them  by  all  means ;  but  they  are  not  worthy  the 
name  of  pictures,  and  should  be  judged  of  by  a 
different  standard,  —  that  of  the  picture-dealer, —  and 
treated  as  articles  of  commerce.  They  are  not  pictures 
in  the  sense  that  Raphael's  "  Sacrament "  or  Titian's 
"  Flora"  are  pictures.  The  painters  of  them  stoop  to 
supply  the  wants  of  the  age.  The  true  artist  raises  the 
age  up  to  his  level :  he  shows  us  different  aspects  of 
persons  and  things,  new  facts  about  them,  new  ideas ; 
he  makes  us  see  what  we  have  never  seen  before,  feel 
what  we  have  never  felt  before.  If  any  picture  we 
know  has  done  something  of  this  kind  for  us,  we  may 
be  sure  that  it  is  a  real  work  of  art. 

It  is  not  that  the  subjects  of  such  pictures  as  I  have 
described  are  in  fault,  but  the  ideas,  or  rather  want 
of  ideas,  expressed  in  them.  That  very  portrait  of  a 
lady,  with  meaningless,  simpering  face  and  over-gor- 
geous attire,  might  have  been  an  interesting  and  grace- 
ful subject  if  the  artist  had  set  himself  to  discover,  to 
express,  the  interesting  side  of  her  character  and  the 
subtler  graces  of  her  demeanor,  instead  of  caring  so 
much  about  her  jewels  and  her  velvet  gown  as  to 
make  them  the  most  prominent  things  :  it  seems,  too, 
as  if  the  lady  must  have  cared  about  them  unduly  too. 

So  with  the  portrait  of  a  gentleman.  There  must 
be  something  in  his  character,  his  powers,  his  brains, 


I Q2  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

that  is  more  interesting  than  the  shininess  of  his  coat, 
his  inkstand,  his  arm-chair.  Very  likely  it  is  a  good 
likeness  as  regards  shape  and  size  of  features,  but  the 
painter  should  do  something  more.  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds seems  to  have  had  the  power  of  discovering  in 
faces  and  figures  —  that  often,  no  doubt,  seemed  suf- 
ficiently commonplace  to  the  rest  of  the  world — some 
nobility  of  expression,  some  grace  of  form  or  tender- 
ness of  coloring ;  so  that  in  all  his  portraits  the  subject 
has  the  air  of  being  somebody,  distinguished  by  some 
gifts  of  mind  or  person  that  the  painter  knew  how  to 
seize  and  avail  himself  of,  —  at  the  same  time,  we  may 
be  sure,  passing  over  defects,  and  ignoring  the  dis- 
agreeable and  the  positively  unbeautiful.  For  these 
reasons  have  his  pictures  been  treasured  and  handed 
down,  their  beauties  explained,  commented  upon,  and 
praised  afresh,  by  each  succeeding  generation  of  the 
family  to  whom  the  original  subject  belonged ;  so  that 
it  has  become  a  distinction  highly  prized,  a  kind  of 
patent  of  gentility  (in  a  good  sense),  to  have  a  Sir 
Joshua  in  the  family.  This  is  what  the  art  of  portrait- 
painting  may  be,  and  what  in  one  or  two  modern 
painters'  hands  it  still  is.  A  colored  photograph  is 
just  as  valuable  as  the  average  portrait.  Of  course  it 
is  faithful,  but  we  want  something  more  :  we  want  to 
be  made  to  feel  the  application  of  the  human  mind 
to  the  subject ;  we  want  some  idealizing,  some  trans- 
forming power.  The  same  with  landscape.  The  true 
painter,  in  choosing  a  natural  scene  for  his  subject, 
does  not  seek  to  get  every  thing  that  he  sees  into  his 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  193 

picture,  but  to  get  what  makes  the  beauty  of  that 
scene,  and  to  leave  out  what  does  not.  There  is 
often  something  jarring,  something  incongruous,  in  a 
real  scene,  or  that  would  be  so  if  it  were  put  into  the 
picture. 

In  a  landscape,  or  in  some  accidental  grouping  of 
real  figures,  Nature  is  so  complex  and  crowded,  so 
full  of  infinite  details  of  form  and  tint,  that  it  would 
be  a  lifelong  and  fruitless  labor  for  a  painter  to  set 
himself  to  reproduce  even  a  very  small  part. 

This  should  not  be  difficult  for  any  one  to  under- 
stand who  has  practised  in  any  degree  the  art  of 
drawing.  I  do  not  mean  copying  other  drawings,  — 
that  is  merely,  as  Hogarth  said,  "  pouring  water  from 
one  vessel  into  another,"  —  but  really  drawing  some- 
thing from  nature,  say  a  flowering  branch.  The  very 
outline  itself  is  a  bold  stretch  of  imagination.  There 
is  no  outline  in  nature  :  there  are  masses  of  color 
and  light  and  shade,  relieved  against  other  masses  of 
color  and  light  and  shade ;  and  the  outline  is  a  device 
for  defining  the  exact  point  where  they  begin  and  end. 
And,  beside  the  outline,  there  is  much  more  :  when  we 
think  we  have  it  correctly,  —  and  that  is  net  easy,  for 
people  are  so  apt  to  draw  a  thing  as  they  think  it 
ought  to  be,  not  what  it  really  is,  —  then  come  light 
and  shade,  color,  projection,  space ;  our  difficulties 
are  multiplied  a  thousand-fold ;  we  very  soon  find  that 
some  details,  some  irregularities  of  form  and  surface, 
some  lights,  some  shadows,  must  be  left  out  —  they 
are  too  infinite  and  crowded  for  us ;  we  begin  to  feel 


194  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

that  the  thing  for  us  to  study  is  the  inmost  character 
of  the  object  we  are  drawing,  and  our  business  must 
be  to  express  that,  leaving  many  details  alone.  So 
must  it  be  on  a  larger  scale  :  the  artist  must  penetrate 
the  innermost  spirit  of  the  person  or  scene  he  paints, 
and  show  it  to  us  no  longer  obscured  by  the  common- 
ness of  the  detail  of  every-day  life  and  appearance ; 
but  this  is  asking  a  great  deal.  And  the  painter's  aim, 
his  thought,  his  motive,  must  be  distinct  and  clear  in 
his  own  mind,  in  order  to  appeal  to  ours ;  and,  be- 
sides this,  great  technical  knowledge  and  mastery  are 
needed  in  order  to  paint  the  simplest  subject  worthily. 
It  is  impossible  to  refuse  to  see  that  the  England  of 
to-day  does  not  afford  a  favorable  soil  for  the  growth 
of  Art.  Science,  commerce,  literature,  flourish ;  but 
Art,  considered  in  its  relation  to  the  world  at  large, 
languishes.  All  the  social  or  public  scenes  of  modern 
life  lend  themselves  more  readily  to  caricature  than  as 
subjects  for  great  pictures.  Little  beauty  of  form  or 
color  can  be  found  in  groups  or  assemblages  of  ordi- 
nary English  people.  We  have  no  leisure  to  cultivate 
such  things ;  we  are  too  full  of  cares,  of  pleasures ;  we 
are  forever  busied  in  the  making  of  money,  or  else 
the  spending  of  it ;  there  is  too  much  to  do,  too  much 
luxury,  too  little  simplicity.  This  is  expressed  in  the 
costume  of  the  day,  of  men  and  women  too :  it  is  too 
tight-fitting,  too  crowded  with  mean  detail.  Think 
how  the  golden  copes,  the  jewelled  mitres,  the  armor 
of  steel  inlaid  with  gold  and  silver,  and  plumed  and 
crested  headgear,  of  a  former  age,  compare  in  pic- 


FINE  ART — PAINTING  1 95 

torial  effect  with  the  black-silk  gown,  the  lawn  sleeves, 
the  padded  coat  and  chimney-pot  hat,  of  this.  The 
degeneracy  of  costume  in  modern  times  is  a  great 
hinderance  to  all  but  exceptionally  gifted  painters 
Pictures  of  incidents  of  modern  life,  in  which  the 
figures  are  clothed  in  the  height  of  this  year's  fashion, 
are  sure  to  look  quite  out  of  date  and  dowdy  in  a  year 
or  two.  Compositions  representing  weddings,  and 
picnics,  and  such  like  scenes,  in  which  the  chimney- 
pot hat  flourishes  in  great  perfection,  are  to  be  found 
in  every  exhibition.  The  life  they  depict  has  no  pic- 
torial aspects  ;  the  painter  has  no  thought  to  express, 
no  beauty  to  reveal,  —  only  a  little  sentimentality,  a 
little  feeble  moralizing.  Still,  there  are  English  painters 
of  the  present  time,  of  much  higher  aims,  whose  works 
range  from  poetical  interpretation  of  nature  in  land- 
scape, from  noble  portraiture,  up  to  paintings  of  a 
higher  order,  still  aiming  at  ideal  beauty,  and  appeal- 
ing almost  exclusively  to  poetical  ideas.  It  is  not 
possible  for  me  now  to  enumerate  these  artists,  or  to 
describe  their  pictures  :  they  can  be  easily  singled  out 
by  those  who  truly  care  for  Art  in  its  highest  sense. 

I  will  ask  you  to  look  at  a  few  photographs  from  the 
works  of  Mr.  Burne-Jones.  I  know  I  am  expressing 
not  merely  my  own  feeling,  but  the  highest  deliberate 
judgment  of  the  time,  when  I  say  that  here  is  a  painter 
who  really  treads  in  the  same  glorious  path  as  the  great 
masters,  and  —  having  splendid  gifts  of  color,  and 
poetic  idea  and  feeling,  of  exquisite  and  noble  form 
and  execution  —  he  may  be  reckoned  as  their  true 


196  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

descendant ;  and  I  venture  to  say,  that,  the  more  the 
masters  of  acknowledged  great  periods  are  studied, 
the  more  will  be  the  works  of  Burne- Jones  be  appre- 
ciated and  admired. 

Two  of  these  photographs  are  taken  from  a  series 
of  pictures  whose  subject  is  "The  Sleeping  Beauty." 
The  first  one,  which  I  am  sorry  not  to  have  been  able 
to  procure,  shows  the  hedge  of  strong  thorns  through 
which  the  first  adventurers  could  not  pierce,  because 
the  man  and  the  hour  had  not  yet  arrived  ;  and  there 
lie  their  dead  and  ghastly  forms,  huddled  together, 
caught  in  the  cruel  hedge,  all  wreck  and  despair :  but, 
when  the  hundred  years  are  over,  the  thorn  blossoms 
at  last,  and  breaks  into  constellations  of  fair  wild  roses. 

In  the  first  of  those  before  us,  we  see  enthroned  on 
the  carpeted  dais  the  aged  king,  his  head  sunk  on  his 
breast,  bowed  down  by  the  weight  of  the  one  hundred 
years  of  slumber ;  and,  as  Tennyson  says,  "  his  beard 
has  grown  into  his  lap."  His  chief  minister  of  state 
lies  next  him,  and  then  the  singers  and  attendant  mu- 
sicians ;  and  the  musical  instruments  lie  waiting,  too, 
for  their  recall  to  life  and  sound  ;  and,  behind  all  this, 
still  the  strong  fence  of  thorn  thrusting  forcibly  its 
strong  arms  in  among  the  sleepers,  and  beginning  to 
enclose  the  king's  throne  itself.  And  then  we  come 
into  the  presence  of  the  princess.  She  lies  on  a  long, 
low  couch,  surrounded  by  a  closer  growth  of  leaf  and 
blossom,  so  that  the  thorny  fence  is  scarcely  seen  ;  and 
round  her  head  and  feet,  and  in  her  hand,  grow  the 
roses,  and  in  the  interstices  of  the  pavement  spring 


FINE  ART — PAINTING.  197 

delicate  columbines,  ready  for  the  foot  of  the  prince ; 
here  the  attendant  maidens  too,  weighed  down  by 
slumber,  await  the  waking  hour :  but  there  is  expec- 
tancy in  the  air ;  the  sleeping  girl  is  almost  ready  to 
turn  and  lift  her  head,  and  stir  the  delicate  folds  of  the 
drapery  that  have  lain  still  for  so  long.  Tennyson's 
little  poem,  when  I  looked  at  it  again,  intending  to 
quote  from  it,  has  a  slighter  meaning  than  all  this  :  we 
have  here  ideas  nearer  to  the  soul  of  beauty,  blending 
the  charm  of  story  and  sentiment  (the  medium  of  the 
art  of  poetry)  with  the  charm  of  line  and  color  (the 
medium  of  the  art  of  painting). 

And  here  we  have  a  figure  of  Temperance  standing 
with  pure  white  feet,  pouring  water  on  the  hot  unruly 
flame.  The  eddying  curves  of  her  drapery,  blown  by 
the  wind  from  the  fire,  are  so  exquisitely  drawn,  that 
there  is  almost  a  breath  of  motion  in  them. 

And  here,  lastly,  is  Hope,  a  fair  maiden  impris- 
oned in  an  upper  chamber  of  a  strong  tower.  Behind 
the  iron  grating,  we  can  see  the  cold  blank  walls  and 
friendless  aspect  of  the  great  world ;  but  still  Hope 
lives  and  blooms  in  her  prison.  She  holds  in  her  right 
hand  a  bough  of  apple-blossom,  rich  in  promise  of 
the  fruit  that  is  to  come.  Above  her  is  a  dim  veil  or 
curtain  suspended,  through  which  her  other  hand  is 
barely  seen,  reaching  into  the  future  as  she  gazes  up. 
So  let  us  fitly  end  with  Hope. 

And  now  I  have  come  to  the  end,  not,  indeed,  of 
all  I  have  to  say,  but  of  all  that  at  this  time  I  can  ask 
you  to  listen  to.  I  am  afraid  —  I  know  —  that  my 


198  LECTURES  ON  ART. 

great  subject  has  suffered  at  my  hands,  in  being  con- 
tracted into  too  small  a  space  ;  and  it  is  only  too  likely 
that  it  has  suffered  in  other  ways  as  well.  There  is 
one  idea  that  I  hope  I  have  kept  fully  in  view  in  all 
that  I  have  said  from  the  beginning,  —  that  Art  is  not 
a  thing  having  a  separate  existence ;  it  is  not  merely  a 
costly  exotic,  only  cultivated  by  the  wealthy  few,  and 
intended  to  please  a  narrow  circle  of  highly  refined 
people  :  not  this,  but  a  blossoming  of  the  universal 
nature  of  man,  a  natural  outcome  of  every  age,  every 
stage  of  civilization,  every  condition  in  life. 

It  is  true  that  this  growth  is  sometimes  stunted  and 
meagre,  and  the  general  influences  abroad  in  the  world 
may  be  adverse  to  it ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  will 
again  rise  and  flourish,  for  it  is  rooted  in  the  love  of 
beauty,  —  that  beauty  that  is  in  all  the  best  things 
of  life,  all  things  of  divine  creation  and  of  the  divinity 
working  in  man ;  so  that  Art  seems  to  have,  in  its 
essence,  something  divine,  something  immortal ;  and, 
unless  we  will  give  some  portion  of  our  time  and  of 
our  powers  to  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  and  interest  in 
these  things,  a  great  part  of  the  good  things  of  life 
will  be  lost  to  us,  and  some  of  the  most  glorious  and 
delightful  work  of  man's  hand  will,  for  us,  have  been 
accomplished  in  vain. 


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